Sunrise’s Interesting Calendars feature comes to Microsoft Outlook

Some of the people who bemoaned the sunset of the Sunrise calendar app after it was acquired by Microsoft may appreciate today’s news that one of Sunrise’s cooler features, the Interesting Calendars setting — which let users add thousands of calendars for holidays, sports teams, name days, and other things onto their main calendars — has arrived in Microsoft’s Outlook mail and calendar app.

The feature is rolling out now. At the moment it’s only available in North America on the new Outlook.com and for commercial users on Outlook on the web, and it will become available on Android and iOS for Office 365 customers. To add calendars, just click the “Add calendar” dropdown menu, select “Interesting calendar,” and select which ones you want from the panel that slides out on the right side of the window.

Microsoft is launching the feature with an initial emphasis on the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, which kick off on Friday, August 5.

“From the gold medal round of boxing to swimming relays to the gymnastic routines — we have you covered,” the Outlook team wrote in a blog post. “Powered by Bing, Outlook Interesting calendar lets you browse a curated list of Summer Games, sports leagues and teams and add them to your calendar. Once added, your events will show up on your Outlook calendar across all your devices. It’s simple, intuitive and ensures you don’t miss a thing.”

Interesting Calendars are not a surprise to see in Outlook, by the way. In October Javier Soltero, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Outlook — who arrived at Microsoft through its acquisition of Soltero’s email and calendar app startup Acompli — wrote in a blog post that Interesting Calendars would come to Outlook “over the coming months.”

This isn’t the first thing Microsoft has brought over to Outlook from Sunrise. In April Microsoft announced the launch of Calendar Apps in Outlook for Android and iOS.