Help with Presently.
Answers to the usual questions. If yours isn't here, write to contact@bluetomatostudio.com and a person will answer.
Installing
Open the download, drag Presently into your Applications folder, and open it from there. It needs macOS 14 or later. The first time, macOS asks whether Presently may see your calendars. Say yes, and your events show up right away.
I can't see Presently in the menu bar
When the menu bar is full, macOS hides the icons that don't fit behind the notch, without saying so. Presently is still running. It keeps a Dock icon and a window for this reason, and Control-Option-P opens your day from any app. To make room, hold Command and drag menu bar icons to rearrange them, or turn some off in their own apps' settings.
Adding Google Calendar
Open Settings › Calendars and press Add a Google account. Your browser opens Google's sign-in. Once you allow access, come back to Presently and your Google calendars appear. You can add more than one account. To remove one, press Remove next to it: its calendars leave Presently, and nothing changes in Google.
My Apple Calendar events are missing
Presently needs permission to read your calendars. Open Settings › Calendars and press Allow access, or turn Presently on in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Calendars. Any account in Apple Calendar comes along: iCloud, Exchange and the rest.
The Join button didn't show up
Presently shows Join when an event has a call link it recognizes: Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Webex, Slack huddles and about twenty more. It looks in the event's call details, location and notes. Check that Settings › Alerts › Show a Join button at the top of the screen is on, and set how many minutes before the call it appears. Control-Option-J joins the call that's on now from any app.
Presently doesn't tell me when to leave
It needs two things: an address in the event's location, and your location. Open Settings › Alerts, turn on Tell me when to leave, and press Turn on location. macOS asks once. You can also set how early you like to arrive.
The colors don't match my time of day
Until location is on, Presently guesses your sunrise and sunset from your time zone, which can be off by a little. Turning on location in Settings › Alerts fixes it. The colors change eight times a day, from night through dawn, morning, afternoon, sunset and dusk, and each event takes the color of the hour it starts in.
Choosing when it goes dark
By default Presently turns dark after sunset. In Settings you can have it follow your Mac's dark mode instead, or stay light all the time.
Keyboard shortcuts
| These work from any app | |
|---|---|
| Join the call that's on now | Control-Option-J |
| Add an event | Control-Option-Space |
| Open your day | Control-Option-P |
| Open the week | Control-Option-W |
| In the week | |
| New event | Command-K |
| Last week, next week | Command-Left Arrow Command-Right Arrow |
| This week | Command-T |
| Taller or shorter hours | Command-Plus Command-Minus |
| Fit the day to the window | Command-0 |
| Start an event at a time | Double-click |
| Copy an event while moving it | Hold Option and drag |
| Undo a move | Command-Z |
| Go to another week | Swipe left or right with two fingers |
Updates
Presently asks once whether to look for new versions. If you say yes, it checks this website once a day. When there is one, it tells you what changed and installs it when you say so. Nothing about you or your calendar is sent with the check. Updates only work when Presently is in your Applications folder, not when it's opened straight from the download.
Uninstalling
Quit Presently, then move it from Applications to the Trash. To remove its saved events and settings too, open Finder, choose Go › Go to Folder, paste ~/Library/Application Support/Presently, and move that folder to the Trash. If you had added a Google account, you can also remove its access at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
Still stuck?
Write to contact@bluetomatostudio.com. Tell us your Mac's macOS version and what you expected to happen.