Introducing DankCalendar

June 15, 2026 · 7 min read

Dank Linux Team

DankCalendar

0.1 · First Release

DankCalendar is a solution for calendar management on Linux that unifies Local, Google, Microsoft, CalDAV, and iCloud calendars into a single agenda. It features background synchronization, native event reminders, secure credential storage, a comprehensive GUI, keyboard-driven navigation, and a scriptable IPC interface. Now available on Arch Linux via the AUR, coming soon to the rest of the Dank Linux repositories.

Built into DMS 1.5​

DMS 1.5 detects a running dcal daemon and uses it as a calendar backend over IPC, with no extra setup.

• Unified agenda in DankDash. The calendar card shows your real events from every connected account, color-coded per calendar.
• Create and edit events from the shell. You can add, edit, and delete events right in DankDash. The old khal integration was read-only, so this is new.
• Keyboard navigation throughout. Move around the agenda, open event details, and dismiss it all from the keyboard.
• Native reminders. Upcoming-event notifications come through the DMS notification system you already use.
• A backend selector lives in Settings > Time & Weather (Auto, khal, or DankCalendar), along with a Launch DankCalendar button.

If dcal isn't running, DMS falls back to khal, so nothing breaks.

Credentials and data​

There's no DankLinux server involved. dcal talks to Google, Microsoft, your CalDAV or iCloud host, or your local .ics files directly, so your events and tokens never leave your machine. For Google and Microsoft you create your own OAuth app, so the whole connection is yours.

• Credentials go in your system keyring (e.g. GNOME Keyring, KWallet) rather than your config files. If no keyring is available, dcal falls back to an encrypted on-disk store.
• Synced calendars and events are cached in a local SQLite database under ~/.local/share/dankcal/, following the XDG base directory spec. Everything works offline, and sync catches up when you're back online.
• The daemon listens on a per-user Unix socket in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, scoped to your login session. It's not a network port.

Getting Started​

Install on Arch from the AUR:

# Prebuilt binary
yay -S dankcalendar-bin

# Or build from latest git
yay -S dankcalendar-git

On Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE, install dankcalendar-git from the DankLinux repository (COPR, OBS, or PPA depending on your distro). See the installation guide for repository setup commands.

You can connect accounts from the GUI or the CLI.

dcal run                  # Launch DankCalendar
dcal account add google   # or microsoft, caldav, icloud, local

DankCalendar runs as a daemon, so closing the window only hides it and sync and reminders keep running in the tray - you can change the close behavior in settings. Enable Start at login from Settings, or install the systemd user service.

See the DankCalendar documentation for full installation, account setup, and IPC reference.

Why a new Linux calendar?​

It fits the Dank philosophy of focused tools (dgop, dsearch) that do one thing well and integrate together, without unnecessary dependencies or assumptions about your setup. The calendar is a core part of the user experience, so it deserves a first-party solution that works well with the shell and with your existing accounts.

khal and vdirsyncer are scriptable and lightweight, but they're two tools you wire together yourself. You write a vdirsyncer config, set up OAuth tokens by hand, run sync on a cron, then point khal at the output. It's not a user-friendly or comprehensive solution.

Evolution and Evolution Data Server are powerful, but they're tied to the GNOME desktop and incredibly difficult to build on or integrate with. The calendar is just one part of a huge suite of apps sharing the EDS backend.

• The calendar is buried inside an Outlook-style suite, and account setup is spread across GNOME Settings, GNOME Online Accounts, and Evolution itself, so it's never clear which one actually owns a calendar.
• EDS is a shared backend, which is a good idea, but its API is GObject/C with async GLib and very few real examples. Writing a launcher widget, a shell card, or a CLI against it means digging through source-registry concepts and ECalClient instead of calling something simple.
• It drags in a heavy GTK and WebKitGTK stack and assumes you're on GNOME, which is awkward on niri, Hyprland, Sway, KDE, or a custom shell.

DankCalendar keeps the good part of that idea, one synced backend that lots of things can read, but makes it pleasant to use and to build on: sign-in style account setup, a local cache that works offline, a documented IPC API (dcal ipc events.list, events.create, and so on) with JSON output, and a daemon-plus-frontends design that behaves the same on any compositor.

Resources​

Join the community

DankCalendar is brand new, so feedback and bug reports go a long way. Come hang out in the #dms channels on the niri Discord, or open an issue on GitHub. Providers, widgets, and translations are all welcome.