Outlook for Windows and Mac can easily add appointments or events using times from another time zone. They’ll show up and remind you in your local time.
That’s really handy for global meetings or live streams scheduled in other locations.
Enter the Outlook appointment or event using the time and time zone given by the organizer. No need to convert into your local time because Outlook will do that for you (we’ll explain that below).
Create a new event/appointment and look for the Time zones option. Outlook for Windows has it inline with the Start and End times.
In Outlook for Mac, Time Zones is on the ribbon.
Change the time zone to match the city or location needed, then change the date and times for both Start and End.
Save the appointment, then check the calendar. The appointment will appear scheduled for the local time zone (set in Windows/Mac), in this case London, UK
Extra tips
Copy the appointment details into the notes, as a reminder and check later.
Start and End times can be in different time zones, handy for flights or long train trips.
Under the hood
How does Outlook handle time zone conversions? While it’s not apparent to us mere humans, Outlook saves all appointments and events in Universal (UTC) time plus a time zone offset.
Every appointment is saved with time zone details. That’s usually hidden and Outlook assumes the appointment is in the local time zone.
The Outlook / Exchange database has always worked that way. It was frustrating when early versions of Outlook didn’t have the Time Zone selection option even though developers knew the database was setup to handle them.
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