Configuring khal

khal reads configuration files in the ini syntax, meaning in understands keys separated from values by a =, while section and subsection names are enclosed by single or double square brackets (like [sectionname] and [[subsectionname]].

Location of configuration file

Khal is looking for a configuration file named khal.conf in the following places: in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/khal/ (on most systems this is ~/.config/khal/ by default), ~/.khal/ and in the current directory. Alternatively you can specifiy with configuration file to use with -c path/to/config at runtime.

The [calendars] section

The [calendars] is mandatory and must contain at least one subsection. Every subsection must have a unique name (enclosed by two square brackets). Each subection needs exactly one path setting, everything else is optional. Here is a small example:

[calendars]

  [[home]]
    path = ~/.calendars/home/
    color = dark green

  [[work]]
    path = ~/.calendars/work/
    readonly = True
color

khal will use this color for coloring this calendar’s event. Depending on your terminal emulator’s settings, they might look different than what their name implies.

type:option, allowed values are black, white, brown, yellow, dark grey, dark green, dark blue, light grey, light green, light blue, dark magenta, dark cyan, dark red, light magenta, light cyan, light red and **
default:
path

the path to a vdir where this calendar is saved

type:string
default:None
readonly

setting this to True, will keep khal from making any changes to this calendar

type:boolean
default:False

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 [locale] section

The most important options in the the [locale] section are probably (long-)time and dateformat.

encoding

set this to the encoding of your terminal emulator

type:string
default:utf-8
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
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
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:%d.%m.%Y
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:%d.%m.%Y %H:%M
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
datetimeformat

khal will display and understand all datetimes in this format, see timeformat for the format.

type:string
default:%d.%m. %H:%M
weeknumbers

Enable weeknumbers in calendar and interactive (ikhal) mode. As those are iso weeknumbers, they only work properly if firstweekday is set to 0

type:weeknumbers
default:off
timeformat

khal will display and understand all times in this format, use the standard format as understood by strftime, see https://strftime.net or man strftime

type:string
default:%H:%M
dateformat

khal will display and understand all dates in this format, see timeformat for the format

type:string
default:%d.%m.
firstweekday

the day first day of the week, were Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6

type:integer, allowed values are between 0 and 6
default:0

The [default] section

The default section begins with a [default] tag. Some default values and behaviours are set here.

default_calendar

the calendar to use if no one is specified but only one can be used (e.g. if adding a new event), this should be a valid calendar name.

type:string
default:None
default_command

command to be executed if no command is given when executing khal

type:option, allowed values are calendar, agenda, interactive and **
default:calendar
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 event in “agenda” view. Setting this to True will show all days in “agenda”, even when there is no event

type:boolean
default:False

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

syncing

To get khal working with CalDAV you will first need to setup 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).