Google Calendar can now hide completed tasks

Abner Li | Sep 7 2023 - 4:43 pm PT

After rolling out Material You widgets on Android, Google Calendar is now hiding completed tasks by default.

Google Calendar on the web today is prompting some users about how “Completed tasks are now hidden: Use this menu to show or hide completed tasks.”

You can change the new default by clicking the time period (Day, Week, Month, Year, Schedule, or 4 days) view switcher. At the bottom, “Show completed tasks” joins “Show weekends” and “Show declined events.”

Some users don’t like seeing reminders that they’ve accomplished, especially minor, repetitive ones, while others prefer having it preserved alongside other calendar events. (Tangent: Automatically-created flight events from Gmail will disappear after some time. Events should really be permanent once they appear in Calendar.) It’s useful when looking back, though this can also be done inside Google Tasks.

We’re not yet seeing the matching setting on the Android or iOS apps, even if it’s available on the web for your account. It’s not clear if this is a per-instance setting or account-wide. Otherwise, Google is still rolling out this setting.