Google

2015-09-13

No Birthday Reminders for People You Don't Know

I made it a habit to add my Google account to "Internet Accounts" in OS X, which also enables me to see calendar events on the notification window when I am on my Mac. Problem is that I get bombarded with birthday reminders for people I do not personally know.




My first shorthand solution was to uncheck "Calendar" from Google Account in the OS X Calendar application.


That solves the problem on Mac, but I am 'still' a Chrome user and see these alerts on Chrome too.

There is a long article on Techcrunch from early 2015 complaining about this issue, but a note at the end that Google was working on a solution. No update after that, but I think Google has fixed it now, and you can stop these alerts at the source :


  • Go to google.com/calendar, you should see Birthdays under Calendars
  • Under My calendars, click on dropdown box to the right of Birthdays and select "Calendar Settings" or "Edit Notifications"


  • Select "Contacts only" option next to "Show birthdays from"


  • Hit "Save" at the bottom


Enjoy!