Calendar Mirror vs Local Calendar Sync

Compared August 2026 · every price and feature below was checked against Local Calendar Sync’s own site and App Store listing on 28 August 2026. These change — check the Local Calendar Sync site and App Store listing before deciding.

The established on-device option. Same idea, two years older, twice the price.

These two do the same job the same way. Both copy events between calendars already on your Apple device, both run entirely on-device with no account and no server, and both can write a plain “Busy” blocker instead of the real event. If you were expecting one of them to be the privacy-respecting choice, they both are.

Local Calendar Sync got there first. It has been on the App Store since March 2024 and is on version 1.7.1; this app arrived in July 2026. Two extra years of other people finding the edge cases counts for a lot. Against it: a lower price, an open codebase, and finer control over which events cross over.

Side by side

Calendar MirrorLocal Calendar Sync
Price$2.99 once · free from source$6.99 once
Where it runsEntirely on your deviceEntirely on your device
Account requiredNoneNone
PlatformsiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac
On the App Store sinceJuly 2026March 2024
Open sourceYes — MIT, and you can build it yourself for nothingNo
Redacting eventsBusy-only, with your own label and an optional prefixBlocker instead of the full event
FiltersDeclined, unanswered, cancelled, all-day, free, duration bounds, title, time-of-day and weekday windowKeywords, availability status, allow and ignore lists
Duration filtersYes — shorter or longer than N minutesNot published
RSVP filtersSkip meetings you declined or have not answeredNot published
Per-event overrideYes — a tag in an event’s notes beats the ruleNot published
Apple ShortcutsNoYes
Background scheduleEvery 5–60 minutes, your choiceEvery 10 minutes on Mac; background refresh on iOS
Warns you if it breaksYes — an all-day warning in the destination calendarNot published

Not a privacy comparison. Local Calendar Sync runs on your device, with no account and no server, exactly as Calendar Mirror does. Neither is the private one; the differences are elsewhere.

One limit they state, and which applies equally here: it can only sync calendars that have been added to your device’s Internet Accounts. Neither app can reach a calendar your Mac or iPhone cannot already see.

Which to pick

Where Calendar Mirror is the better pick

  • $2.99 against $6.99, and the source is MIT-licensed if you would rather build it than buy it.
  • Filters on the event’s own RSVP state — skip what you declined, or have not answered yet — and on duration, neither of which they publish.
  • Per-event override: a tag in one event’s notes beats whatever the rule says, without touching the rule.
  • It tells you in the calendar itself when a mirror stops working, rather than failing quietly.
  • Open source, so the claim that nothing leaves your device is one you can check rather than take on trust.

Where Local Calendar Sync is the better pick

  • Two and a half years of shipping, against a few weeks. That is real, and it is the single best reason to pick it.
  • Apple Shortcuts integration, which Calendar Mirror has none of.
  • Allow and ignore lists, and filtering on availability status.
  • A fixed 10-minute background pass on Mac with no setup at all.

What Calendar Mirror does not do, on any tier

None of these are coming later. If you need one of them, buy something else:

Get Calendar Mirror — $2.99 Visit Local Calendar Sync

One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. Calendar Mirror is not affiliated with Local Calendar Sync in any way, and this page is written by Calendar Mirror’s author.

Sources

Compare with the others

← Calendar Mirror · Comparisons · Release notes · Privacy · Source · MIT © Matt Baylor