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Chinese lunar birthday reminder for your family

Updated · 2026-05-23

Many parents and grandparents celebrate their birthday on the Chinese lunar calendar, not the Gregorian one. So every year the "real" birthday lands on a different date on your phone — and it is genuinely easy to miss, especially if you live far from family.

MoonCal gives you a reminder in the calendar app you already use — Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook, or Fastmail — so you never have to do the lunar-to-Gregorian math again. You set it up once, and it keeps working year after year.

Why lunar birthdays are so easy to forget

  • The lunar birthday falls on a different Gregorian date every year, so there's no fixed day to memorize.
  • A normal "yearly repeat" in your calendar locks the wrong date — it drifts 10–11 days off, every year.
  • Older family members may only remember their lunar birth date, not the Gregorian one.
  • If a birthday is in a leap month, most calendar apps have no idea what to do with it.

How MoonCal keeps the date right every year

You enter the birthday once as a lunar date. MoonCal converts it into the correct Gregorian date for the next 20 years and publishes the result as a calendar subscription. Your calendar app fetches that subscription and shows the birthday on the right day each year — automatically, with no maintenance from you.

If you fill in the birth year, MoonCal also shows the age in the title — for example "Dad's birthday (70)" — and recomputes it every year, so the reminder tells you which birthday is coming up.

Set a reminder before the day

Every birthday MoonCal creates comes with reminders 1 day and 3 days before, so you have time to call, send a gift, or plan dinner — not just a notification on the morning of. You can adjust or turn these off per event.

Share it with the whole family

Because MoonCal produces a standard subscription URL, you can send the same link to siblings or relatives. Everyone adds it to their own calendar app and gets the same reminders — so remembering Grandma's birthday is no longer one person's job.

Works with the app you already have

You do not need a new app or another login on your phone. MoonCal works through the calendar you already check every day:

  • Apple Calendar (iPhone, iPad, Mac)
  • Google Calendar
  • Outlook
  • Fastmail and other apps that support calendar subscriptions

Never forget a family lunar birthday again

Add the lunar birthdays that matter, set reminders, and subscribe in your calendar app. It takes a few minutes and MoonCal keeps the dates correct for the next 20 years.

Get started — free

Related guides

How to add a lunar birthday to Apple Calendar (macOS + iOS)

Apple Calendar has no built-in support for lunar dates, but you can add a lunar birthday in two minutes using an ICS subscription. Step-by-step for macOS and iPhone, with age labels and reminders that actually work.

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How to add a Chinese lunar birthday to Google Calendar

Google Calendar repeats events on the Gregorian calendar, so a lunar birthday set as a yearly repeat drifts wrong every year. Here's how to add one correctly with an ICS subscription that updates automatically — step-by-step for desktop and mobile.

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What is a lunar leap month, and why most calendar apps get it wrong

Lunar leap months appear about seven times every nineteen years and break naive birthday-repeat logic. Here is what they are, why your calendar app probably ignores them, and the three strategies MoonCal uses to handle them correctly.

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