How to Remove Holidays From the Default Calendar

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Last reviewed on March 11, 2021     22 Comments

Microsoft Outlook comes with a file named Outlook.hol that includes lists of holidays that you can import into your personal Calendar folder using the File, Options, Calendar, Add Holidays command. This makes it easy to add holidays and many users wind up importing the same group of holidays twice or adding extra holidays.

If you have holidays in a separate calendar, see Remove the Holiday or Birthday calendar from Outlook.com or Office 365 Email.

You can remove the holidays, or duplicates, using one of these methods: delete all events in the Holiday category then re-add the holidays you want added, use Instant Search to find all events with 'holiday' in the subject and group by location then delete, or to delete just the duplicates, use the Created date field to sort by date added and delete the events which have same created date.

If you added more than one set of holidays, you can group by location, then select the location group header and delete.

Search for Holidays

You can use the Search field to find holidays.

  1. In the Search field, type 'holiday'.
    search for holiday
  2. Right-click on a field and choose Group by This Field. If you want to delete all holidays, group by the Holiday field. If you want to delete some locations but not all holidays, group by the Location field.
    group by a field
  3. Go to View tab, click Expand/Collapse menu and choose Collapse All Groups.
  4. Select the group name and Delete.
    select the group and delete

Delete all events in the Holiday category

You can delete all holidays then add back the holidays you need. This works especially well if you have duplicate holidays to delete.

  1. Switch to a List view then arrange by Category.
  2. Collapse the Groups to make it easier to find the category
  3. Select the Holiday category then press Delete.
  4. Go to File, Options, Calendar and click Add Holidays. Select the Locations you want to install and complete the wizard.


Sort by Created date

Use this method if you have duplicate holidays to delete from the calendar. All holidays that were added at the same time will have the same created date.

In Outlook 2010 and up:

  1. Switch to the View ribbon and select Change View, List
  2. Click View Settings then Columns
  3. Select Created and click Add -> to add it to the view
  4. Click OK to return to Outlook
  5. Sort by the Created date field
  6. The holidays that are imported together will have the same Created date
  7. Select the first event and hold Shift as you select the last
  8. Press Delete

To remove the duplicates from Outlook 2007 and older

To use the Created date method to delete duplicated appointments in Outlook 2007 and older, follow the instructions below.

  1. Choose View | Current View | Events to switch to the table-format Events view. All the holidays will be listed under the Recurrence: (none) group. (Outlook 2003: View | Arrange By | Current View | Events)
  2. Right-click any column heading, then choose Field Chooser.
  3. In the Field Chooser, switch from the Frequently-used fields list to Date/Time fields, and then drag the Created date to the view to add it to the fields displayed.
  4. Click on the Created column header to sort by that field.
  5. You should now see two distinct sets of holidays, each in reverse chronological order. Click on the first holiday of the set you want to delete.
  6. Use the scroll bar to view the last holiday of that set. Hold down the Shift key as you click on the last holiday. This selects all the holidays in that set.
  7. Press Delete to remove them all from the Calendar folder.
  8. Drag the Created column header out of the view to remove it.

While its very easy to remove duplicate Holidays and a duplicate removal utility is not necessary, if you have duplicates of other calendar appointments, one of the tools below can remove the duplicates.

 

Tools in the Spotlight

4Team Duplicate Killer

Outlook Duplicate Killer is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook. Find, merge and remove Outlook duplicates. Compare, assign the category, flag and move duplicates to selected folders. Find and remove duplicate contacts, emails, calendar events, tasks and notes automatically. Manage duplicates in any Microsoft Outlook folder, including Microsoft Exchange and Public folders. Preview duplicate search results prior to processing. New Duplicate Killer has improved user interface. Now account name and folder path are display.

Duplicates Remover for Outlook

Delete duplicate contacts, notes, tasks, journal and calendar items in Microsoft Outlook folders and Exchange Server folders. Duplicates can be marked, copied or moved to any folder. It supports searching across the folders. Supports all versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2007/2010. Version 2.6

ReliefJet Essentials for Outlook

ReliefJet Essentials is a set of 162 utilities for Outlook, Office 365 and Exchange Server. It can backup, import, export and convert data into different formats. Perform personalized mass mailings. Save, remove and optimize attachments. Find and remove duplicate messages, contacts, appointments, meetings, and other items. Retrieve statistics on email usage and get reports on Outlook data and settings. You can run the utilities directly from Outlook, automatically in rules, via standalone app, or from the command line.

Tools

1-Click Duplicate Delete

1-click solution to remove duplicate mails, contacts or calendar items. Merges contacts automatically, has an undo function and a configurable advanced mode. Version 3.03 Now supports Outlook 2010 (both 32 and 64 bit).

4Team Outlook Duplicate Remover

Duplicate Remover will find, merge and remove duplicates in 3 steps using simple search wizard. Search duplicate items and merge Outlook duplicates automatically. Review & merge duplicate Outlook contacts. Remove Outlook Inbox duplicates, duplicate Contacts and Calendar events, Junk contacts. Quickly clean up all your contacts. Application can now be started as a standalone, without starting Microsoft Outlook. Scan Outlook inbox automatically and clean duplicates in one click. Now delete duplicates for multiple folders.

Deduper - Outlook Duplicate Remover

Deduper does exactly as the name suggests, it searches and removes all duplicates - including appointments, contacts, notes, tasks or emails.

Delete Duplicates for Outlook

Delete Duplicates for Outlook deletes duplicate e-mails. Detect and remove duplicate messages, contacts, calendar items, tasks, journal entries and notes. Compare messages by content (Standard), by part of the content (Special) or by unique message-id's (Light). Compare attachments and/or embedded files, by name and/or by content. Compare duplicates across several mailboxes or in within the boundaries of individual mailboxes. Use Regular Expressions. Works with all Outlook versions, inc. Outlook 2010/2013 32 or 64-bit.

Duplicate Appointments Eliminator

The Duplicate Appointments Eliminator allows you to either delete all the duplicates or move them to a folder of your choice. Comparisons of two appointments (optionally) based on subject, location, start time, end time, body, categories, recurrences, and required attendees. Works with Exchange public folders or other shared folders and you can choose to operate on a single folder or select many folders at once. Works with Microsoft Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2000.

Kernel for Outlook Duplicates Remover

Kernel for Outlook Duplicates Remover tool is specifically programmed to remove duplicate items of MS Outlook permanently. The tool easily locates all duplicate Outlook items and provides option to either manage them or remove them permanently. The tool supports removal of duplicate items for all MS Outlook versions. Its free trial version can remove 10 items from each folder and expires after 30 days of download.

NoMoreDupes for Outlook

NoMoreDupes detects and removes all duplicated Outlook items both in an Outlook pst file, a public folder or in an Exchange account. It shows the found duplicates in a preview for the user to decide which duplicates to remove. You can move the duplicated Outlook items to your "Deleted Items" or to any other folder you specify. NoMoreDupes uses a special algorithm to detect the Outlook duplicates. This Outlook-Add-In works with all versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2010/2013 64bit.

Outlook Duplicates Remover

Removes duplicate items from Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Notes, and mail folders. Free.  

Stellar Duplicate Remover

Clean up your Outlook mailbox from unwanted and duplicate emails with Outlook duplicate remover tool. This software works as an Add-Ins in Outlook and removes duplicates as per different time span and scan criteria. Customized operations like Mark as Expired or Flag, Delete Permanently, Copy to folder and more are also a notable feature of this software.

More Information

Add Holidays Form (sample Outlook form to distribute holidays company-wide)
Outlook Holidays on the Wrong Date
Limited Holidays for Outlook Calendar
Microsoft Outlook’s missing holidays (Outlook-tips)

Post Views: 206

About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

Comments

    • Diane Poremsky says

      Is that the calendar called Holidays in outlook.com or Microsoft 365 Exchange accounts? That is a read-only calendar. You cannot edit it. You can disable the calendar in Outlook on the web - in Calendar section, click Add Calendar then holiday on the lower left. Uncheck the calendar to remove it. Remove birthday calendar the same way.

      Reply

  2. Nick says

    Thank you so much for this. I've had duplicate Holidays and it has been driving me insane! This is the only article I found online that explained in easy steps where the Holidays are located. Thank you! (Finally some peace, lol)

    Reply

  4. Jacques Lecart says

    Hi, using the newest version of Outlook and I can't figure out a way to use the old one..
    I just can't go to file or anything.. everything is just screwed up right now ?

    Reply

  8. dale fisher says

    Is there a way to delete in the "Sort by Created date" method in Outlook for Mac 2011? I can't seem to find a way to add a "Modified" date to the columns in this product.

    Reply

  10. Terri Folino says

    I used this to delete 949 entries in Outlook 2010 that were listed under the Holiday category about an hour ago and I just went back to my calendar and they are all there again.

    I do use CodeTwo to sync to my iCloud account but none of them are on the iCloud account or on my iPhone but for example under Nov 27 I have 8 entries for Day After Thanksgiving in Outlook 2010.

    Reply

  17. Pete Chamberlain says

    Diane,

    Have just used your information to add new dates to outlook 2007 and remove duplicates (forgot to uncheck UK when adding my wifes country of origin holidays).

    Thank you for your easy to read and use instructions

    Pete

    Reply

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