How to create a countdown (clock) calendar in Outlook?

Author Kelly Last modified 2025-04-16

Let’s say you are assigned to prepare for a big holiday party, and you want to countdown the big holiday in Outlook calendar, how could you get it done? This article will guide you to achieve it.

Create a countdown (clock) calendar in Outlook

Create a countdown (clock) calendar in Outlook

Actually, Outlook doesn’t support to countdown appointments. However, you can add the countdown data in Excel, and then import the Excel data into your Outlook calendar. Please do as follows:

1. Create a new workbook, and prepare the countdown data as below:
(1) Type "Start Date", "Subject", and "Category" in Range A1:C1 as column names;
(2) Type 12/1/2016 and 12/8/2016 into Range A2:A3, select them and drag the AutoFill handle to the range as you need, and finally type the date of the specified holiday below these dates;
(3) In the Cell B2 of "Subject" column, enter the formula =ROUNDDOWN(($A$12-A2+1)/7,0)&" weeks until Chinese New Year's Eve" (A12 is the date of the specified holiday, A2 is the start date), and then drag the AutoFill handle down to the range as you need.
(4) Type in "Category" text as you need.

steps on creating a countdown (clock) calendar in Outlook

And then you will get the countdown data in Excel as below screenshot shown:

2. Click "File" > "Save As" in Excel.

3. In the opening Save As dialog box, please (1) open the destination folder you will save the CSV file into, (2) type a name in the "File name" box, (3) select "CSV (Comma delimited)" from the "Save as type" drop down list, and (4) click the "Save" button.

Note: If a warning dialog box comes out and reminds you that some features might be lost, please click the "Yes" button to go ahead.

So far you have saved the countdown data in Excel, and saved as CSV file.

4. Go to Outlook, and click "File" > "Open & Export" (or "Open") > "Import / Export" (or "Import").

5. In the Import and Export Wizard, please select the "Import from another program or file" option, and click the "Next" button.

6. In the Import a File dialog box, please select the "Comma Separated Values" option, and click the "Next" button.

7. In the Import a File dialog box, please click the "Browse" button to select the CSV file you saved above, and click the "Next" button.

8. In the Import a File dialog box, please select the destination calendar where you want to add the countdown data, and click the "Next" button.

9. In the Import a File dialog box, please click the "Map Custom Fields" button.

10. In the Map Custom Fields dialog box, click the "Clear Map" button firstly, and then drag column names in the "From" box to map relative fields in the right "To" box one by one, and then click the "OK" button.

11. Click the "Finish" button to complete the importing. Go to open the destination calendar, and you will see the countdown appointments have been added as below screenshot shown:

Easily count emails per day/week/month and report via chart in Outlook

Kutools for Outlook release a new feature of Statistics, which can help you easily count received by day/week/month, count the number of selected emails, count the number of all items in all folders, etc., and report the counting results in Charts as following screenshot shown.