Provided by: khal_0.11.4-1_all 
NAME
khal - khal Documentation
Khal is a calendar program for the terminal for viewing, adding and editing events and calendars. Khal is
build on the iCalendar and vdir (allowing the use of vdirsyncer(1) for CalDAV compatibility) standards.
USAGE
Khal offers a set of commands, most importantly list, calendar, interactive, new, printcalendars,
printformats, and search. See below for a description of what every command does. khal does currently not
support any default command, i.e., run a command, even though none has been specified. This is
intentional.
Options
khal (without any commands) has some options to print some information about khal:
--version
Prints khal's version number and exits
-h, --help
Prints a summary of khal's options and commands and then exits
Several options are common to almost all of khal's commands (exceptions are described below):
-v, --verbosity LVL
Configure verbosity (e.g. print debugging information), LVL needs to be one of CRITICAL, ERROR,
WARNING, INFO, or DEBUG.
-l, --logfile LOFILE
Use logfile LOGFILE for logging, default is logging to stdout.
-c CONFIGFILE
Use an alternate configuration file.
-a CALENDAR
Specify a calendar to use (which must be configured in the configuration file), can be used
several times. Calendars not specified will be disregarded for this run.
-d CALENDAR
Specify a calendar which will be disregarded for this run, can be used several times.
--color/--no-color
khal will detect if standard output is not a tty, e.g., you redirect khal's output into a file,
and if so remove all highlighting/coloring from its output. Use --color if you want to force
highlighting/coloring and --no-color if you want coloring always removed.
--format FORMAT
For all of khal's commands that print events, the formatting of that event can be specified with
this option. FORMAT is a template string, in which identifiers delimited by curly braces ({})
will be expanded to an event's properties. FORMAT supports all formatting options offered by
python's str.format() <https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#formatstrings> (as it is used
internally). The available template options are:
title The title of the event.
description
The description of the event.
description-separator
A separator: " :: " that appears when there is a description.
uid The UID of the event.
start The start datetime in datetimeformat.
start-long
The start datetime in longdatetimeformat.
start-date
The start date in dateformat.
start-date-long
The start date in longdateformat.
start-time
The start time in timeformat.
end The end datetime in datetimeformat.
end-long
The end datetime in longdatetimeformat.
end-date
The end date in dateformat.
end-date-long
The end date in longdateformat.
end-time
The end time in timeformat.
repeat-symbol
A repeating symbol (loop arrow) if the event is repeating.
alarm-symbol
An alarm symbol (alarm clock) if the event has at least one alarm.
location
The event location.
calendar
The calendar name.
calendar-color
Changes the output color to the calendar's color.
start-style
The start time in timeformat OR an appropriate symbol.
to-style
A hyphen "-" or nothing such that it appropriately fits between start-style and end-style.
end-style
The end time in timeformat OR an appropriate symbol.
start-end-time-style
A concatenation of start-style, to-style, and end-style OR an appropriate symbol.
end-necessary
For an allday event this is an empty string unless the end date and start date are
different. For a non-allday event this will show the time or the datetime if the event
start and end date are different.
end-necessary-long
Same as end-necessary but uses datelong and datetimelong.
status
The status of the event (if this event has one), something like CONFIRMED or CANCELLED.
status-symbol
The status of the event as a symbol, ✓ or ✗ or ?.
partstat-symbol
The participation status of the event as a symbol, ✓ or ✗ or ?.
cancelled
The string CANCELLED (plus one blank) if the event's status is cancelled, otherwise
nothing.
organizer
The organizer of the event. If the format has CN then it returns "CN (email)" if CN does
not exist it returns just the email string. Example: ORGANIZER;CN=Name
Surname:mailto:name@mail.com returns Name Surname (name@mail.com) and if it has no CN
attribute it returns the last element after the colon:
ORGANIZER;SENT-BY="mailto:toemail@mail.com":mailto:name@mail.com returns name@mail.com
url The URL embedded in the event, otherwise nothing.
url-separator
A separator: " :: " that appears when there is a url.
duration
The duration of the event in terms of days, hours, months, and seconds (abbreviated to d,
h, m, and s respectively).
repeat-pattern
The raw iCal recurrence rule if the event is repeating.
all-day
A boolean indicating whether it is an all-day event or not.
categories
The categories of the event.
By default, all-day events have no times. To see a start and end time anyway simply add -full to
the end of any template with start/end or duration, for instance start-time becomes
start-time-full and will always show start and end times (instead of being empty for all-day
events).
In addition, there are colors: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white (and their
bold versions: red-bold, etc.). There is also reset, which clears the styling, and bold, which is
the normal bold.
A few control codes are exposed. You can access newline (nl), 'tab', and 'bell'. Control codes,
such as nl, are best used with --list mode.
Below is an example command which prints the title and description of all events today.
khal list --format "{title} {description}"
--json FIELD ...
Works similar to --format, but instead of defining a format string a JSON object is created for
each specified field. The matching events are collected into a JSON array. This option accepts the
following subset of --format template options:
title, description, uid, start, start-long, start-date,
start-date-long, start-time, end, end-long, end-date,
end-date-long, end-time, start-full, start-long-full,
start-date-full, start-date-long-full, start-time-full,
end-full, end-long-full, end-date-full, end-date-long-full,
end-time-full, repeat-symbol, location, calendar,
calendar-color, start-style, to-style, end-style,
start-end-time-style, end-necessary, end-necessary-long,
status, cancelled, organizer, url, duration, duration-full,
repeat-pattern, all-day, categories
Note that calendar-color will be the actual color name rather than the ANSI color code, and the
repeat-symbol, status, and cancelled values will have leading/trailing whitespace stripped.
Additionally, if only the special value all is specified then all fields will be enabled.
Below is an example command which prints a JSON list of objects containing the title and
description of all events today.
khal list --json title --json description
--day-format DAYFORMAT
works similar to --format, but for day headings. It only has a few options (in addition to all the
color options):
date The date in dateformat.
date-long
The date in longdateformat.
name The date's name (Monday, Tuesday,…) or today or tomorrow.
If the --day-format is passed an empty string then it will not print the day headers (for an empty
line pass in a whitespace character).
dates
Almost everywhere khal accepts dates, khal should recognize relative date names like today, tomorrow and
the names of the days of the week (also in three letters abbreviated form). Week day names get
interpreted as the date of the next occurrence of a day with that name. The name of the current day gets
interpreted as that date next week (i.e. seven days from now).
If a short datetime format is used (no year is given), khal will interpret the date to be in the future.
The inferred it might be in the next year if the given date has already passed in the current year.
Commands
list
shows all events scheduled for a given date (or datetime) range, with custom formatting:
khal list [-a CALENDAR ... | -d CALENDAR ...]
[--format FORMAT] [--json FIELD ...] [--day-format DAYFORMAT]
[--once] [--notstarted] [START [END | DELTA] ]
START and END can both be given as dates, datetimes or times (it is assumed today is meant in the case of
only a given time) in the formats configured in the configuration file. If END is not given, midnight of
the start date is assumed. Today is used for START if it is not explicitly given. If DELTA, a (date)time
range in the format I{m,h,d}, where I is an integer and m means minutes, h means hours, and d means days,
is given, END is assumed to be START + DELTA. A value of eod is also accepted as DELTA and means the end
of day of the start date. In addition, the DELTA week may be used to specify that the daterange should
actually be the week containing the START.
The --once option only allows events to appear once even if they are on multiple days. With the
--notstarted option only events are shown that start after START.
Some examples
Including or excluding specific calendars:
• khal list -d soccer will display events, in list form, from every calendar except "soccer."
• khal list -a soccer will display events, in list form, from only the "soccer" calendar.
Working with date ranges:
• khal list -a soccer today 30d will show all events in next 30 days (from the "soccer" calendar).
• khal list 2019-12-01 31d will show all all events for the 31 days following Dec 1, 2019.
at
shows all events scheduled for a given datetime. khal at should be supplied with a date and time, a time
(the date is then assumed to be today) or the string now. at defaults to now. The at command works just
like the list command, except it has an implicit end time of zero minutes after the start.
khal at [-a CALENDAR ... | -d CALENDAR ...]
[--format FORMAT] [--json FIELD ...]
[--notstarted] [[START DATE] TIME | now]
calendar
shows a calendar (similar to cal(1)) and list. khal calendar should understand the following syntax:
khal calendar [-a CALENDAR ... | -d CALENDAR ...] [START DATETIME]
[END DATETIME]
Date selection works exactly as for khal list. The displayed calendar contains three consecutive months,
where the first month is the month containing the first given date. If today is included, it is
highlighted. Have a look at khal list for a description of the options.
configure
will help users creating an initial configuration file. configure will refuse to run if there already is
a configuration file.
import
lets the user import .ics files with the following syntax:
khal import [-a CALENDAR] [--batch] [--random-uid|-r] ICSFILE
If an event with the same UID is already present in the (implicitly) selected calendar khal import will
ask before updating (i.e. overwriting) that old event with the imported one, unless --batch is given,
than it will always update. If this behaviour is not desired, use the --random-uid flag to generate a
new, random UID. If no calendar is specified (and not --batch), you will be asked to choose a calendar.
You can either enter the number printed behind each calendar's name or any unique prefix of a calendar's
name.
interactive
invokes the interactive version of khal, can also be invoked by calling ikhal. While ikhal can be used
entirely with the keyboard, some elements respond if clicked on with a mouse (mostly by being selected).
When the calendar on the left is in focus, you can
• move through the calendar (default keybindings are the arrow keys, space and backspace, those
keybindings are configurable in the config file)
• focus on the right column by pressing tab or enter
• re-focus on the current date, default keybinding t as in today
• marking a date range, default keybinding v, as in visual, think visual mode in Vim, pressing esc
escapes this visual mode
• if in visual mode, you can select the other end of the currently marked range, default keybinding o
as in other (again as in Vim)
• create a new event on the currently focused day (or date range if a range is selected), default
keybinding n as in new
• search for events, default keybinding /, a pop-up will ask for your search term
When an event list is in focus, you can
• view an event's details with pressing enter (or tab) and edit it with pressing enter (or tab) again
(if [default] event_view_always_visible is set to True, the event in focus will always be shown in
detail)
• toggle an event's deletion status, default keybinding d as in delete, events marked for deletion
will appear with a D in front and will be deleted when khal exits.
• duplicate the selected event, default keybinding p as in duplicate (d was already taken)
• export the selected event, default keybinding e
In the event editor, you can
• jump to the next (previous) selectable element with pressing tab (shift+tab)
• quick save, default keybinding meta+enter (meta will probably be alt)
• use some common editing short cuts in most text fields (ctrl+w deletes word before cursor, ctrl+u
(ctrl+k) deletes till the beginning (end) of the line, ctrl+a (ctrl+e) will jump to the beginning (end)
of the line
• in the date and time fields you can increment and decrement the number under the cursor with ctrl+a and
ctrl+x (time in 15 minute steps)
• in the date fields you can access a miniature calendar by pressing enter
• activate actions by pressing enter on text enclosed by angled brackets, e.g. < Save > (sometimes this
might open a pop up)
Pressing esc will cancel the current action and/or take you back to the previously shown pane (i.e. what
you see when you open ikhal), if you are at the start pane, ikhal will quit on pressing esc again.
new
allows for adding new events. khal new should understand the following syntax:
khal new [-a CALENDAR] [OPTIONS] [START [END | DELTA] [TIMEZONE] SUMMARY
[:: DESCRIPTION]]
where start- and enddatetime are either datetimes, times, or keywords and times in the formats defined in
the config file. If no calendar is given via -a, the default calendar is used. new does not support -d
and also -a may only be used once.
new accepts these combinations for start and endtimes (specifying the end is always optional):
• datetime [datetime|time] [timezone]
• time [time] [timezone]
• date [date]
where the formats for datetime and time are as follows:
• datetime = (longdatetimeformat|datetimeformat|keyword-date timeformat)
• time = timeformat
• date = (longdateformat|dateformat)
and timezone, which describes the timezone the events start and end time are in, should be a valid Olson
DB identifier (like Europe/Berlin or America/New_York. If no timezone is given, the defaulttimezone as
configured in the configuration file is used instead.
The exact format of longdatetimeformat, datetimeformat, timeformat, longdateformat and dateformat can be
configured in the configuration file. Valid keywords for dates are today, tomorrow, the English name of
all seven weekdays and their three letter abbreviations (their next occurrence is used).
If no end is given, the default length of one hour or one day (for all-day events) is used. If only a
start time is given the new event is assumed to be starting today. If only a time is given for the event
to end on, the event ends on the same day it starts on, unless that would make the event end before it
has started, then the next day is used as end date
If a 24:00 time is configured (timeformat = %H:%M) an end time of 24:00 is accepted as the end of a given
date.
If the summary contains the string ::, everything after :: is taken as the description of the new event,
i.e., the "body" of the event (and :: will be removed).
Passing the option --interactive (-i </usr/share/doc/python3-doc/html/using/cmdline.html#cmdoption-i>)
makes all arguments optional and interactively prompts for required fields, then the event may be edited,
the same way as in the edit command.
Options
• -l, --location=LOCATION specify where this event will be held.
• -g, --categories=CATEGORIES specify which categories this event belongs to. Comma separated list of
categories. Beware: some servers (e.g. SOGo) do not support multiple categories.
• -r, --repeat=RRULE specify if and how this event should be recurring. Valid values for RRULE are
daily, weekly, monthly and yearly
• -u, --until=UNTIL specify until when a recurring event should run
• --url specify the URL element of the event
• --alarms DURATION,... will add alarm times as DELTAs comma separated for this event, DURATION should
look like 1day 10minutes or 1d3H10m, negative DURATIONs will set alarm after the start of the event.
Examples
These may need to be adapted for your configuration and/or locale (START and END need to match the format
configured). See printformats.
khal new 18:00 Awesome Event
adds a new event starting today at 18:00 with summary 'awesome event' (lasting for the default time of
one hour) to the default calendar
khal new tomorrow 16:30 Coffee Break
adds a new event tomorrow at 16:30
khal new 25.10. 18:00 24:00 Another Event :: with Alice and Bob
adds a new event on 25th of October lasting from 18:00 to 24:00 with an additional description
khal new -a work 26.07. Great Event -g meeting -r weekly
adds a new all day event on 26th of July to the calendar work in the meeting category, which recurs every
week.
edit
an interactive command for editing and deleting events using a search string
khal edit [--show-past] event_search_string
the command will loop through all events that match the search string, prompting the user to delete, or
change attributes.
printcalendars
prints a list of all configured calendars.
printformats
prints a fixed date (2013-12-21 21:45) in all configured date(time) formats. This is supposed to help
check if those formats are configured as intended.
search
search for events matching a search string and print them. Currently, search will print one line for
every different event in a recurrence set, that is one line for the master event, and one line for every
different overwritten event. No advanced search features are currently supported.
The command
khal search party
prints all events matching party.
CONFIGURATION
khal reads configuration files in the ini syntax, meaning it understands keys separated from values by a
=, while section and subsection names are enclosed by single or double square brackets (like
[sectionname] and [[subsectionname]]). Any line beginning with a # will be treated as a comment.
Help with initial configuration
If you do not have a configuration file yet, running khal configure will launch a small, interactive tool
that should help you with initial configuration of khal.
Location of configuration file
khal is looking for configuration files in the following places and order: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/khal/config
(on most systems this is ~/.config/khal/config), ~/.khal/khal.conf (deprecated) and a file called
khal.conf in the current directory (deprecated). Alternatively you can specify which configuration file
to use with -c path/to/config at runtime.
The [calendars] section
The [calendars] section is mandatory and must contain at least one subsection. Every subsection must
have a unique name (enclosed by two square brackets). Each subsection needs exactly one path setting,
everything else is optional. Here is a small example:
[calendars]
[[home]]
path = ~/.calendars/home/
color = dark green
priority = 20
[[work]]
path = ~/.calendars/work/
readonly = True
addresses = user@example.com
addresses
All email addresses associated with this account, separated by commas. For now it is only used to
check what participation status ("PARTSTAT") belongs to the user.
type list
default
color khal will use this color for coloring this calendar's event. The following color names are
supported: black, white, brown, yellow, dark gray, dark green, dark blue, light gray, light green,
light blue, dark magenta, dark cyan, dark red, light magenta, light cyan, light red. Depending on
your terminal emulator's settings, they might look different than what their name implies. In
addition to the 16 named colors an index from the 256-color palette or a 24-bit color code can be
used, if your terminal supports this. The 256-color palette index is simply a number between 0
and 255. The 24-bit color must be given as #RRGGBB, where RR, GG, BB is the hexadecimal value of
the red, green and blue component, respectively. When using a 24-bit color, make sure to enclose
the color value in ' or "! If color is set to auto (the default), khal looks for a color value in
a color file in this calendar's vdir. If the color file does not exist, the default_color (see
below) is used. If color is set to '', the default_color is always used. Note that you can use
vdirsyncer metasync to synchronize colors with your caldav server.
type color
default
auto
path The path to an existing directory where this calendar is saved as a vdir. The directory is
searched for events or birthdays (see type). The path also accepts glob expansion via * or ? when
type is set to discover. ** means arbitrary depths of directories. This allows for paths such as
~/accounts/*/calendars/*, where the calendars directory contains vdir directories. In addition,
~/calendars/* and ~/calendars/default are valid paths if there exists a vdir in the default
directory. (The previous behavior of recursively searching directories has been replaced with
globbing).
type string
default
None
priority
When coloring days, the color will be determined based on the calendar with the highest priority.
If the priorities are equal, then the "multiple" color will be used.
type integer
default
10
readonly
setting this to True, will keep khal from making any changes to this calendar
type boolean
default
False
type Setting the type of this collection (default calendar).
If set to calendar (the default), this collection will be used as a standard calendar, that is,
only files with the .ics extension will be considered, all other files are ignored (except for a
possible color file).
If set to birthdays khal will expect a VCARD collection and extract birthdays from those VCARDS,
that is only files with .vcf extension will be considered, all other files will be ignored.
birthdays also implies readonly=True.
If set to discover, khal will use globbing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming)> to
expand this calendar's path to (possibly) several paths and use those as individual calendars
(this cannot be used with birthday collections`). See Exemplary discover usage for an example.
If an individual calendar vdir has a color file, the calendar's color will be set to the one
specified in the color file, otherwise the color from the calendars subsection will be used.
type option, allowed values are calendar, birthdays and discover
default
calendar
The [default] section
Some default values and behaviors are set here.
default_calendar
The calendar to use if none is specified for some operation (e.g. if adding a new event). If this
is not set, such operations require an explicit value.
type string
default
None
default_dayevent_alarm
Define the default alarm for new all dayevents, e.g. '12h'
type timedelta
default
default_dayevent_duration
Define the defaut duration for a day-long event ('khal new' only)
type timedelta
default
1d
default_event_alarm
Define the default alarm for new events, e.g. '15m'
type timedelta
default
default_event_duration
Define the default duration for an event ('khal new' only)
type timedelta
default
1h
enable_mouse
Whether the mouse should be enabled in interactive mode ('khal interactive' and 'ikhal' only)
type boolean
default
True
highlight_event_days
If true, khal will highlight days with events. Options for highlighting are in [highlight_days]
section.
type boolean
default
False
print_new
After adding a new event, what should be printed to standard out? The whole event in text form,
the path to where the event is now saved or nothing?
type option, allowed values are event, path and False
default
False
show_all_days
By default, khal displays only dates with events in list or calendar view. Setting this to True
will show all days, even when there is no event scheduled on that day.
type boolean
default
False
timedelta
Controls for how many days into the future we show events (for example, in khal list) by default.
type timedelta
default
2d
The [highlight_days] section
When highlight_event_days is enabled, this section specifies how the highlighting/coloring of days is
handled.
color What color to use when highlighting -- explicit color or use calendar color when set to ''
type color
default
default_color
Default color for calendars without color -- when set to '' it actually disables highlighting for
events that should use the default color.
type color
default
method Highlighting method to use -- foreground or background
type option, allowed values are foreground, fg, background and bg
default
fg
multiple
How to color days with events from multiple calendars -- either explicit color or use calendars'
colors when set to ''
type color
default
multiple_on_overflow
When multiple is set to a specific color, setting this to True will cause khal to use that color
only for days with events from 3 or more calendars (hence preserving the two-color-highlight for
days where all calendar colors can be displayed)
type boolean
default
False
The [keybindings] section
Keybindings for ikhal are set here. You can bind more than one key (combination) to a command by
supplying a comma-separated list of keys. For binding key combinations concatenate them keys (with a
space in between), e.g. ctrl n.
delete delete the currently selected event
type list
default
d
down move the cursor down (in the calendar browser)
type list
default
down, j
duplicate
duplicate the currently selected event
type list
default
p
export export event as a .ics file
type list
default
e
external_edit
edit the currently selected events' raw .ics file with $EDITOR Only use this, if you know what you
are doing, the icalendar library we use doesn't do a lot of validation, it silently disregards
most invalid data.
type list
default
meta E
left move the cursor left (in the calendar browser)
type list
default
left, h, backspace
log show logged messages
type list
default
L
mark go into highlight (visual) mode to choose a date range
type list
default
v
new create a new event on the selected date
type list
default
n
other in highlight mode go to the other end of the highlighted date range
type list
default
o
quit quit
type list
default
q, Q
right move the cursor right (in the calendar browser)
type list
default
right, l, space
save save the currently edited event and leave the event editor
type list
default
meta enter
search open a text field to start a search for events
type list
default
/
today focus the calendar browser on today
type list
default
t
up move the cursor up (in the calendar browser)
type list
default
up, k
view show details or edit (if details are already shown) the currently selected event
type list
default
enter
The [locale] section
It is mandatory to set (long)date-, time-, and datetimeformat options, all others options in the [locale]
section are optional and have (sensible) defaults.
dateformat
khal will display and understand all dates in this format, see timeformat for the format
type string
default
%x
datetimeformat
khal will display and understand all datetimes in this format, see timeformat for the format.
type string
default
%c
default_timezone
this timezone will be used for new events (when no timezone is specified) and when khal does not
understand the timezone specified in the icalendar file. If no timezone is set, the timezone your
computer is set to will be used.
type timezone
default
None
firstweekday
the first day of the week, where Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6
type integer, allowed values are between 0 and 6
default
0
local_timezone
khal will show all times in this timezone If no timezone is set, the timezone your computer is set
to will be used.
type timezone
default
None
longdateformat
khal will display and understand all dates in this format, it should contain a year (e.g. %Y) see
timeformat for the format.
type string
default
%x
longdatetimeformat
khal will display and understand all datetimes in this format, it should contain a year (e.g. %Y)
see timeformat for the format.
type string
default
%c
timeformat
khal will display and understand all times in this format.
The formatting string is interpreted as defined by Python's strftime
<https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html#time.strftime>, which is similar to the format
specified in man strftime.
In the configuration file it may be necessary to enclose the format in quotation marks to force it
to be loaded as a string.
type string
default
%X
unicode_symbols
by default khal uses some unicode symbols (as in 'non-ascii') as indicators for things like
repeating events, if your font, encoding etc. does not support those symbols, set this to False
(this will enable ascii based replacements).
type boolean
default
True
weeknumbers
Enable weeknumbers in calendar and interactive (ikhal) mode by specifying whether they should be
displayed on the 'left' or 'right'. These are iso weeknumbers, so will only work properly if
firstweekday is set to 0
type weeknumbers
default
off
The [palette] section
Override ikhal's color theme with a custom palette. This is useful to style certain elements of ikhal
individually. Palette entries take the form of key = foreground, background, mono, foreground_high,
background_high where foreground and background are used in "low color mode" and foreground_high and
background_high are used in "high color mode" and mono if only monocolor is supported. If you don't want
to set a value for a certain color, use an empty string (''). Valid entries for low color mode are
listed on the urwid website <http://urwid.org/manual/displayattributes.html#standard-foreground-colors>.
For high color mode you can use any valid 24-bit color value, e.g. '#ff0000'.
NOTE:
24-bit colors must be enclosed in single quotes to be parsed correctly, otherwise the # will be
interpreted as a comment.
Most modern terminals should support high color mode.
Example entry (particular ugly):
[palette]
header = light red, default, default, '#ff0000', default
edit = '', '', 'bold', '#FF00FF', '#12FF14'
footer = '', '', '', '#121233', '#656599'
See the default palettes in khal/ui/colors.py for all available keys. If you can't theme an element in
ikhal, please open an issue on github <https://github.com/pimutils/khal/issues/new/choose>.
The [sqlite] section
path khal stores its internal caching database here, by default this will be in the
$XDG_DATA_HOME/khal/khal.db (this will most likely be ~/.local/share/khal/khal.db).
type string
default
None
The [view] section
The view section contains configuration options that effect the visual appearance when using khal and
ikhal.
agenda_day_format
Specifies how each day header is formatted.
type string
default
{bold}{name}, {date-long}{reset}
agenda_event_format
Default formatting for events used when the user asks for all events in a given time range, used
for list, calendar and in interactive (ikhal). Please note, that any color styling will be ignored
in ikhal, where events will always be shown in the color of the calendar they belong to. The
syntax is the same as for --format.
type string
default
{calendar-color}{cancelled}{start-end-time-style}
{title}{repeat-symbol}{alarm-symbol}{description-separator}{description}{reset}
blank_line_before_day
Add a blank line before the name of the day (khal only)
type boolean
default
False
bold_for_light_color
Whether to use bold text for light colors or not. Non-bold light colors may not work on all
terminals but allow using light background colors.
type boolean
default
True
dynamic_days
Defines the behaviour of ikhal's right column. If True, the right column will show events for as
many days as fit, moving the cursor through the list will also select the appropriate day in the
calendar column on the left. If False, only a fixed ([default] timedelta) amount of days' events
will be shown, moving through events will not change the focus in the left column.
type boolean
default
True
event_format
Default formatting for events used when the start- and end-date are not clear through context,
e.g. for search, used almost everywhere but list and calendar. It is therefore probably a sensible
choice to include the start- and end-date. The syntax is the same as for --format.
type string
default
{calendar-color}{cancelled}{start}-{end}
{title}{repeat-symbol}{alarm-symbol}{description-separator}{description}{reset}
event_view_always_visible
Set to true to always show the event view window when looking at the event list
type boolean
default
False
event_view_weighting
weighting that is applied to the event view window
type integer
default
1
frame Whether to show a visible frame (with box drawing characters) around some (groups of) elements or
not. There are currently several different frame options available, that should visually
differentiate whether an element is in focus or not. Some of them will probably be removed in
future releases of khal, so please try them out and give feedback on which style you prefer (the
color of all variants can be defined in the color themes).
type option, allowed values are False, width, color and top
default
False
min_calendar_display
Minimum number of months displayed by calendar command default is 3 months
type integer
default
3
monthdisplay
Display month name on row when the week contains the first day of the month ('firstday') or when
the first day of the week is in the month ('firstfullweek')
type monthdisplay
default
firstday
theme Choose a color theme for khal.
Khal ships with two color themes, dark and light. Additionally, plugins might supply different
color schemes. You can also define your own color theme in the [palette] section.
type string
default
dark
A minimal sample configuration could look like this:
Example
[calendars]
[[home]]
path = ~/.calendars/home/
[[work]]
path = ~/.calendars/work/
[locale]
local_timezone= Europe/Berlin
default_timezone= Europe/Berlin
timeformat= %H:%M
dateformat= %d.%m.
longdateformat= %d.%m.%Y
datetimeformat= %d.%m. %H:%M
longdatetimeformat= %d.%m.%Y %H:%M
Exemplary discover usage
If you have the following directory layout:
~/calendars
├- work/
├- home/
└─ family/
where work, home and family are all different vdirs, each containing one calendar, a matching calendar
section could look like this:
[[calendars]]
path = ~/calendars/*
type = discover
color = dark green
Syncing
To get khal working with CalDAV you will first need to setup vdirsyncer
<https://github.com/pimutils/vdirsyncer>. After each start khal will automatically check if anything has
changed and automatically update its caching db (this may take some time after the initial sync,
especially for large calendar collections). Therefore, you might want to execute khal automatically
after syncing with vdirsyncer (e.g. via cron).
STANDARDS
khal tries to follow standards and RFCs (most importantly RFC 5545
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5545.html> iCalendar) wherever possible. Known intentional and
unintentional deviations are listed below.
RDATE;VALUE=PERIOD
RDATE s with PERIOD values are currently not supported, as icalendar
<https://github.com/collective/icalendar> does not support it yet. Please submit any real world examples
of events with RDATE;VALUE=PERIOD you might encounter (khal will print warnings if you have any in your
calendars).
RANGE=THISANDPRIOR
Recurrent events with the RANGE=THISANDPRIOR are and will not be [1] supported by khal, as applications
supporting the latest standard <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5546> MUST NOT create those. khal will
print a warning if it encounters an event containing RANGE=THISANDPRIOR.
[1] unless a lot of users request this feature
Events with neither END nor DURATION
While the RFC states:
A calendar entry with a "DTSTART" property but no "DTEND"
property does not take up any time. It is intended to represent
an event that is associated with a given calendar date and time
of day, such as an anniversary. Since the event does not take up
any time, it MUST NOT be used to record busy time no matter what
the value for the "TRANSP" property.
khal transforms those events into all-day events lasting for one day (the start date). As long a those
events do not get edited, these changes will not be written to the vdir (and with that to the CalDAV
server). Any timezone information that was associated with the start date gets discarded.
NOTE:
While the main rationale for this behaviour was laziness on part of khal's main author, other calendar
software shows the same behaviour (e.g. Google Calendar and Evolution).
Timezones
Getting localized time right, seems to be the most difficult part about calendaring (and messing it up
ends in missing the one important meeting of the week). So I'll briefly describe here, how khal tries to
handle timezone information, which information it can handle and which it can't.
In general, there are two different type of events. Localized events (with localized start and end
datetimes) which have timezone information attached to their start and end datetimes, and floating events
(with floating start and end datetimes), which have no timezone information attached (all-day events,
events that last for complete days are floating as well). Localized events are always observed at the
same UTC <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time> (no matter what time zone the
observer is in), but different local times. On the other hand, floating events are always observed at the
same local time, which might be different in UTC.
In khal all localized datetimes are saved to the local database as UTC. Datetimes that are already UTC,
e.g. 19980119T070000Z, are saved as such, others are converted to UTC (but don't worry, the timezone
information does not get lost). Floating events get saved in floating time, independently of the
localized events.
If you want to look up which events take place at a specified datetime, khal always expects that you want
to know what events take place at that local datetime. Therefore, the (local) datetime you asked for gets
converted to UTC, the appropriate localized events get selected and presented with their start and end
datetimes converted to your local datetime. For floating events no conversion is necessary.
Khal (i.e. icalendar <https://github.com/collective/icalendar>) can understand all timezone identifiers
as used in the Olson DB <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database> and custom timezone definitions, if
those VTIMEZONE components are placed before the VEVENTS that make use of them (as most calendar programs
seem to do). In case an unknown (or unsupported) timezone is found, khal will assume you want that event
to be placed in the default timezone (which can be configured in the configuration file as well).
khal expects you always want all start and end datetimes displayed in local time (which can be set in the
configuration file as well, otherwise your computer's timezone is used).
FAQ
Frequently asked questions:
•
Installation stops with an error: source/str_util.c:25:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or
directory
You do not have the Python development headers installed, on Debian based Distributions you can
install them via aptitude install python-dev.
•
unknown key "default_command"
This key was deprecated by f8d9135. See https://github.com/pimutils/khal/issues/648 for the
rationale behind this removal.
LICENSE
khal is released under the Expat/MIT License:
Copyright (c) 2013-2022 khal contributors
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
AUTHOR
Christan Geier et al.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2013-2022 khal contributors
0.11.4 Apr 11, 2025 KHAL(1)