How to hide non-working hours in Calendars in Outlook?

Author: Kelly Last Modified: 2025-04-03

As you know, Microsoft Outlook shows the whole day from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM in the Day view of Calendar, although we have assigned working hours. The non-working hours take up too much space and puzzle users to locate exact working hours in a minute. However, you cannot hide the non-business hours in Outlook. In this article, I will introduce a workaround to cover non-working areas with color in Calendars in Microsoft Outlook.

As the non-working hours cannot actually be hidden from Calendar, as a "workaround", we will guide you to create a daily recurring appointment, and cover non-working areas with color. You can do as follows:

Step 1: Shift to the Calendar view, and open the specified calendar in which you will hide non-working hours.

Step 2: Show the calendar in the "Day" view by clicking the "Change View" > "Calendar" and the "Day" button separately on the "View" tab.

steps of hiding non-working hours in calendars in outlook

Note: In Outlook 2007, you can click the "View" > "Current View" > "Day/Week/Month", and then click the "Day" button above the calendar.

Step 3: Create a new appointment with:

In Outlook 2010 and newer versions, click the "New Appointment" button on the "Home" tab;
In Outlook 2007, click the "File" > "New" > "Appointment".

Step 4: In the new coming Appointment window, specify subject and location, and then click the "Recurrence" button on the "Appointment" tab.

Step 5: Now in the Appointment Recurrence dialog box,

(1) In the "Start" box, enter the time you end up your work every day, for example the 6:00 PM;

(2) In the "End" box, enter the time you begin your work every day, such as 9:00AM;

(3) Check the "Daily" in the "Recurrence pattern" section;

(4) Check the "No end date" in the "Range of recurrence" section;

(5) Click the "OK" button.

Step 6: Now you get back to the Appointment window, and click the "Show As" box on the "Appointment" tab, and select the "Out of Office" from the drop down list. See screen shot below: