Cozi's 30-Day Limit Explained: What Changed and What to Do About It

One day your family calendar worked. The next day, everything past 30 days was gone. If you opened Cozi sometime after May 2024 and found yourself staring at a locked calendar with an upgrade prompt, you weren't imagining things.

Cozi quietly rolled out one of the most controversial changes in family app history — and millions of families are still dealing with the fallout.

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What Exactly Changed

In May 2024, Cozi restricted its free tier so that users can only view and add calendar events within a 30-day rolling window. That means:

• You can't see events more than 30 days in the future
• You can't see past events beyond 30 days ago
• Recurring events outside the window disappear from view
• You can't plan ahead for holidays, school breaks, or sports seasons

Before this change, Cozi Free offered unlimited calendar access. Families had been using it this way for years — some for over a decade.

The upgrade path: Pay $39/year for Cozi Gold to restore unlimited calendar access. That's the only paid option — Cozi discontinued their Max tier.

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Why Families Are Furious

This wasn't just a feature adjustment. For millions of families, Cozi was the central nervous system of their household — school events, sports schedules, doctor appointments, custody exchanges. Then overnight, most of that data became inaccessible unless they paid.

The backlash was immediate. Cozi's Trustpilot rating dropped to 2.1 out of 5 stars, with reviewers describing the change as a "bait and switch" after years of free use. User reviews on app stores reflected similar anger.

The core complaints:

• Lack of notice — Users report receiving roughly one week of warning before the restriction went live
• No data export — Cozi offers no way to bulk-export your calendar data, making it difficult to leave
• Years of trust broken — Families who relied on Cozi for 5–10+ years felt trapped
• Essential feature paywalled — A calendar that can only see 30 days ahead is barely functional for a family

This is especially painful for families who chose Cozi specifically because it was free and built their entire scheduling workflow around it.

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What the 30-Day Limit Actually Means Day-to-Day

Let's make this concrete. Here's what a family on Cozi Free can and can't do after the change:

Scenario	Before May 2024	After May 2024 (Free)
Plan summer camp (3 months out)	✅ Add and view	❌ Can't see past 30 days
Check last year's school schedule	✅ Scroll back	❌ Past events hidden
Set recurring events for the year	✅ Full year view	⚠️ Only visible within 30-day window
Plan holiday travel (2 months out)	✅ Add and view	❌ Blocked by paywall
Search for an event	✅ Search available	❌ Search requires Gold ($39/year)

For a family calendar app, not being able to plan more than 30 days ahead defeats the entire purpose.

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Your Options Now

You have three paths forward:

Option 1: Pay for Cozi Gold ($39/year)

This removes the 30-day limit and restores full calendar access. You also get ad-free experience, month view, event search, and multiple reminders.

The catch: You're paying $39/year for features that were free until May 2024. And Cozi's core app still hasn't been modernized — the interface, sync capabilities, and feature set remain largely the same as they were years ago. Google Calendar sync is still one-way only (Cozi → Google, not the other way).

Option 2: Switch to Google Calendar (Free)

Google Calendar is free with no arbitrary limits. You get full calendar access, two-way sync across devices, and it works with Apple Calendar, Outlook, and every major platform.

The catch: Google Calendar isn't designed for families. There's no shared shopping list, no family-specific features, no AI extraction, and setting up a shared family calendar requires several manual steps.

Option 3: Switch to a Modern Family Calendar App

This is where alternatives like Calendara come in. Here's how it compares to paying for Cozi:

Feature	Cozi Gold ($39/year)	Calendara ($4.99/month)
Calendar limit	Unlimited	Unlimited
Google Calendar sync	One-way only	✅ Two-way
AI event extraction	❌ No	✅ Photo extraction
AI list extraction	❌ No	✅ Photo-to-list
Ads	❌ Removed	❌ No ads ever
Privacy	Warning rating	Privacy-first
Interface	Dated (~2015)	Modern design

Calendara at $4.99/month ($49.99/year) is only $10.99 more per year than Cozi Gold — and for that extra $1/month, you get AI photo extraction, two-way Google sync, and a modern interface.

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The Bigger Problem: You Can't Easily Leave

What makes the 30-day limit especially frustrating is that Cozi doesn't let you export your data. There's no CSV download, no calendar export file, no "take my data and go" option.

If you want to leave, you have to:

1. Print or screenshot your calendar manually
2. Email yourself each shopping list individually
3. Screenshot your recipes one by one
4. Re-enter everything into a new app

This is why we wrote a detailed migration guide — and why Calendara's AI photo extraction makes the switch faster. You can literally photograph your printed Cozi calendar and have every event extracted automatically.

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Will Cozi Reverse the Change?

As of February 2026, there's no indication that Cozi plans to revert the 30-day restriction. The company continues to focus on their two-tier model: Free (limited) and Gold (full access).

The company has been around since 2005 and claims 20+ million users. But a significant portion of that user base was built on the promise of a free family organizer — a promise that no longer holds.

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What We'd Recommend

If you're still on Cozi Free and hitting the 30-day wall every month, you have a decision to make. Paying $39/year for Cozi Gold removes the restriction, but you're paying for an app that hasn't materially improved in years and still can't do two-way calendar sync.

For roughly the same annual cost, you could switch to an app built for how families actually work in 2026 — with AI that turns paper schedules into digital events, real Google Calendar integration, and no restrictions designed to pressure you into upgrading.

Related Guides

• How to Switch from Cozi to Calendara
• Cozi Pricing 2026: Is Cozi Gold Worth It?
• Calendara vs Cozi: Full Comparison
• Best Cozi Alternative 2026
• Cozi vs Google Calendar for Families