How to Add Birthdays to Your Outlook Calendar (New Outlook and Web)

By the end, Dana Brooks’s birthday sits on my Outlook calendar every October 29 with a little cake icon. It shows as an all-day event, it comes back each year on its own, and I didn’t have to build a recurring event by hand.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add birthday in Outlook on the web and in new Outlook: turn on the Birthdays calendar, add a birthday from the calendar or from a contact, then check, edit, hide, or delete it. I’ll also cover what Microsoft says about classic Outlook and reminders.

What you need before you start

I set this up in a Microsoft 365 work mailbox for my made-up business, Bluebird Landscaping Co. Dana Brooks is our new crew lead (also made up), and I don’t want to be the boss who forgets the cake.

• Outlook on the web, new Outlook for Windows, or Outlook.com. Microsoft says the steps are the same in all three. My screenshots come from Outlook on the web.
• The person’s birthday. Outlook’s form has Month, Day, and Year boxes.
• A contact for them, or a few seconds to make one. Outlook’s birthdays come from your contacts, so every birthday lives on a contact card.

That last point matters. The Birthdays calendar isn’t a separate list of dates. It reads the Birthday field on your contacts and turns each one into a calendar event. If you’ve already set up calendar reminders in Outlook, this works differently: you don’t create the event yourself.

Setting up Dana’s birthday on the calendar

Here’s the whole setup in the order I did it. If the Birthdays calendar is already on for you, skip ahead to the step that shows it.

Turn on the Birthdays calendar

Open Calendar and select Add calendar. A dialog opens with a list on the left: Recommended, Add personal calendar, Edit my calendars, Create blank calendar, Add from directory, Subscribe from web, Upload from file, Holidays, and Birthdays.

Select Birthdays. At the top, a dropdown says which account the settings apply to, so confirm it’s the right mailbox. Then check Turn on the birthday calendar.

Microsoft says Outlook then creates events for birthdays that are already saved on your contacts. Those can take a few hours to appear, so don’t panic if the calendar looks empty at first.

Show the Birthdays calendar if it stays hidden

This is the part that tripped me up. In my mailbox the checkbox was already on, yet I couldn’t see a Birthdays calendar anywhere. It was hiding under My calendars, and I only found it after selecting Show all. It was unchecked.

Check Birthdays under My calendars, and it shows up. Outlook also switched on Split view for me, with Calendar and Birthdays side by side. I turned Split view off on the ribbon so everything sits in one calendar.

To hide birthdays later, clear the same checkbox. Microsoft’s steps for showing and hiding are just that: expand My calendars and select or clear Birthdays.

Add a birthday with New birthday

Point at Birthdays under My calendars and select the … (more options) button next to it. The menu shows Show this only, New birthday, Color, Charm, Move up, Move down, and Move to.

Select New birthday. Here’s the surprise: it opens a New contact form, not an event. Microsoft confirms that adding a birthday from the calendar creates a new contact.

I typed Dana in First name and Brooks in Last name. Then I opened the Other section and picked the birthday from the Month, Day, and Year dropdowns. They were filled in with a recent date, so I changed them to October 29, and the year list goes all the way back to 1900.

The same section also has Anniversary, Significant other, and Website fields. A work anniversary is a nice one to add here too. Select Save, and Outlook shows “Contact saved.”

Check that the birthday is on your calendar

Switch to Month view and go to the birthday’s month. For me, “Dana Brooks birthday” showed up on Thursday, October 29, 2026, with a cake icon, in about 10 seconds. Microsoft says it can take a few minutes, so give it a moment before you try again.

Next, I moved ahead 12 months. The birthday was waiting on Friday, October 29, 2027, too. That matches what Microsoft says: birthdays and anniversaries are all-day events that repeat every year.

Click the event to see its details. The popup says Birthdays, then “Dana Brooks birthday,” then Thu 10/29/2026 (All day), with Edit and Delete buttons.

If it doesn’t appear, check two things. Is Birthdays still checked under My calendars? And did you pick the date in the Other section of the contact, not in Notes?

If the people you’re tracking also email you a lot, it can help to show the full email address in Outlook so you’re sure you saved the right person.

Add a birthday to someone who’s already a contact

Most of the time the person is already in your contacts. Don’t use New birthday for them, because that makes a second contact. Edit the one you have instead.

1. Open People from the left side of Outlook.
2. Find the contact under Your contacts. Mine showed as “Brooks Dana,” last name first.
3. Right-click the contact and select Edit. The menu also has Add to favorites, Add to list, Add category, Share as vCard, Email, Chat, Call, and Delete.
4. Open the Other section, set the birthday, and select Save.

When I edited Dana’s card, the Other section showed the same Birthday dropdowns, already set to October 29. I cancelled since nothing needed to change. Microsoft notes a birthday added this way can take a short time to show on the calendar.

This is also how you fix a wrong date. Change it on the contact, save, and the calendar follows. While you’re tidying up, you can create inbox rules in Outlook for the e-cards and party invites that start arriving.

Between the two routes, I’d use the contact one for anyone already in Outlook. The birthday then stays with their email, phone, and notes in one card. New birthday is handy for someone you only want on the calendar, like a client’s kid you promised a card to.

Change it for your own calendar

Once Birthdays is on, the day-to-day stuff is quick. Here’s what Microsoft describes, plus what I saw.

Edit or delete a birthday event

Click the birthday on the calendar and select Edit to change it, then Save. Select Delete to remove it. I didn’t click either on Dana’s event, so this part is Microsoft’s description.

One thing to know before you delete: Microsoft says deleting a birthday event removes it from the calendar, but the contact stays. If you want the person gone too, delete the contact in People.

Hide birthdays for a while

If your calendar gets crowded, clear Birthdays under My calendars. Nothing is deleted. Check it again whenever you want the dates back.

The same menu has Color, so you can make birthdays look different from client jobs. If you share your calendar with coworkers, you can also mark an event as private in Outlook for anything personal.

Birthday reminders

This is where the versions differ. Microsoft says classic Outlook adds reminders by default when you add a birthday or anniversary to a contact.

For new Outlook, Outlook on the web, and Outlook.com, Microsoft’s birthday page doesn’t explain how to set a reminder, and I didn’t test one. So I’m not going to guess at buttons. Check the event itself before you count on a nudge.

Birthdays in classic Outlook for Windows

I only tested the web, so this section is Microsoft’s own guidance for classic Outlook:

• Add a birthday: go to People, right-click a contact and choose Edit Contact (or select New Contact). On the Contact tab, in the Show group, select Details, then type the date in the Birthday or Anniversary box.
• Missing birthday: if a birthday you added to an existing contact doesn’t show, Microsoft suggests removing the contact from People, adding it again, and checking once more.
• Hide or delete: select or clear Birthdays in Calendar. To delete it, right-click Birthdays and choose Delete Calendar. That doesn’t delete your contacts or their saved birthdays.
• Switching back: if you turned on the birthday calendar in new Outlook, it shows under My Calendars in classic Outlook.

For anything Outlook-related I haven’t covered, my Outlook Online tutorials page lists the rest.

Want more Outlook calendar and mailbox help? Try these next

• Set up automatic replies in Outlook Online
• Check your storage space in Outlook Online
• Sort folders in Outlook Online
• Block a sender in Outlook Online

Questions about this setup