Atlas

Atlas puts your whole group on one living world map, with everyone's local time, daylight and working hours. It scores every 15-minute slot across the next five working days and floats the best overlap to the top, or you can scrub the map to pick your own moment. One tap then writes the meeting to your calendar with everyone's local time included.

No, only you need it. Atlas creates the event in your calendar, and you invite the others from there exactly as you normally would - their calendars show the time correctly in their own zone automatically. Atlas also writes each person's local time into the event notes, and drafts a ready-made message ("Let's meet Friday. 8:00 AM for Ben, 5:00 PM for Maya.") you can send by Messages, Mail or anywhere else. Nobody has to install anything.

Yes. One tap adds the meeting to Apple Calendar, or hands off to Google, Outlook or Yahoo, or saves a universal .ics file, whichever you use. Atlas can also read your calendar if you allow it, quietly hiding times that clash with what you have already booked. That access is optional and off by default, and Atlas only ever writes the single event you asked for - never anything in the background.

Download Atlas from theodorehq.com/atlas, open the file and drag Atlas into your Applications folder. On first launch, paste the license key from your purchase email (it starts with ATLAS-) and press Enter. Atlas then walks you through a short setup: set your location, optionally connect your calendar, and add your first person. You are scheduling within a minute or two.

On first launch Atlas asks to use your location, purely to place your pin and set your time zone. Your coordinates go only to Apple Maps to look up your city name; they never touch any Atlas server. Prefer not to share? Skip the prompt and type your city manually instead, during setup or later in Settings under You. Moved or travelling? Tap the Auto-detect Location toggle in Settings and Atlas finds your city again.

Type a city into the search field (or press Cmd+F) and pick from the live suggestions - Atlas looks the place up with Apple Maps, so the time zone is always right. The person appears as a flag pin on the map with their local time. They are named after their city at first; use the inline rename to give them their real name. No email address or account is needed for anyone.

Yes. Groups keep different circles separate: your team, a client project, family. Press Cmd+N for a new group, Cmd+S to name it, and Cmd+1 to Cmd+9 to jump straight to one; Ctrl+Tab cycles through them. Drag groups in the drawer to reorder. You appear in every group automatically, each group can wear its own emoji icon, and each can point at its own calendar and choose whether its people show in the menu bar.

Atlas checks for updates automatically about once an hour and offers new versions with the standard macOS update prompt - your groups and settings carry straight over. To check by hand, open Settings, go to About and click Check for Updates. Every update is free, included in the one-time purchase.

The warm amber band shows where the sun is currently above the horizon. The blue band inside it shows where the local time is within working hours right now. Both are drawn around the point where the sun is directly overhead and sweep across the map as time moves. Pin colours follow the same idea: green means that person is inside working hours, amber means within an hour either side, and red means it is out of hours for them.

Atlas checks every 15-minute slot across the next five weekdays and scores each one against every person's working hours - the closer everyone sits to the middle of their day, the better. The time that suits the whole group best floats to the top, with two alternatives beside it. If your calendar is connected, anything that clashes with your existing events is hidden. Suggestions always land on tidy quarter-hour marks, never at 2:07pm.

Absolutely. Hold Cmd and drag anywhere on the map to scrub time forwards or backwards - every pin's clock, the daylight band and the working-hours band all move with you. Release when the moment looks right and that becomes your meeting time. Press Cmd+T to glide back to right now, or Cmd+B to return to Atlas's suggested best time. You can also tap any of the three suggestion cards to switch between them.

Yes. Open the date and duration drawer on the planning card and pick 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes; 30 is the default. Changing the length re-runs the suggestions straight away, since a 90-minute call needs a bigger overlap between time zones than a quick 15-minute catch-up does.

By default Atlas scans the next five weekdays, skipping Saturday and Sunday. To schedule a weekend call or any particular day, open the date drawer on the planning card and tap the day you want - Atlas then scores every time on that exact date, whatever day of the week it is. Past days stay dimmed and can't be picked.

Yes, once you allow calendar access - it is optional and off by default. Atlas reads the next two weeks of events from the calendars you tick and quietly hides any suggestion that clashes, telling you how many were hidden so you can peek if you want. All-day items like birthdays and holidays are ignored on purpose; only timed events count as busy. Everything is read locally on your Mac and nothing is uploaded.

Once a time is chosen, Atlas writes the message for you: "Let's meet Friday. 8:00 AM for Ben, 5:00 PM for Maya. See you then." - everyone in their own local time. Hit Share to send it by Messages, Mail, Notes or AirDrop, or press Shift+Cmd+C to copy it anywhere. Adding the meeting to your calendar also writes each person's local time into the event notes, so the invite explains itself.

All the big ones. The default hands the event to your Mac's calendar app - Apple Calendar, or Fantastical or BusyCal if one of those is your default. You can instead choose Google Calendar, Outlook (personal or work) or Yahoo, which open in your browser with everything pre-filled, ready to save. Use something else, like Proton or Fastmail? Pick the calendar-file option and Atlas saves a universal file to Downloads that imports into anything. Choose your preference in Settings under Calendar.

Yes. In Settings, under Calendar, the Per Group section lets each group pin its own calendar - family meetings onto your personal iCloud calendar, client calls onto the work Google one. For Google or Outlook, add the account email there too, so the right account opens every time even when you are signed in to several. Groups without a pinned calendar simply follow your global choice.

Yes. Open Settings and adjust the two Working Hours sliders in the You section; the default is 9:00 to 17:00, adjustable in half-hour steps. These hours drive everything: which times Atlas suggests, the blue band on the map, and the green, amber and red pin colours. One thing to know: the same window currently applies to everyone in the group - there are no separate hours per person.

Press Cmd+K for Quick Check. It opens a scratch space seeded with just you - type any city, compare clocks, plan a one-off call, all without touching your saved groups. Press Esc when you are done and it vanishes completely. If the comparison turns out to be worth keeping, press Cmd+S and Atlas saves it as a new group, ready to rename.

That is your team as a tiny constellation: one dot per person, placed by where they are in the world, brighter when they are in working hours. Click it for a quick roster grouped by time of day, from late night through dawn, daytime, dusk and evening, often with a helpful line such as "Maya wraps up her day in 20 minutes." Choose which groups appear there in Settings, and hide the icon entirely under Behaviour if you prefer.

Yes. Atlas is a one-time $4.99 purchase with no subscription and no upgrade fees. One licence covers up to three Macs, and you can deactivate a Mac in Settings to free a slot for a new one. Every future update is included. It needs macOS 13 Ventura or later and runs natively on Apple Silicon, with Intel supported.

Your key arrives by email from Polar, our checkout partner, right after purchase - it starts with ATLAS-. Open Atlas, paste the key into the activation screen and press Enter. Capitalisation doesn't matter, and pressing activate twice won't use up an extra device slot. If the email hasn't arrived within a few minutes, check the spam folder, then write to support@theodorehq.com and we will sort it out.

No problem. Your key was emailed from Polar, our checkout partner, when you bought Atlas - search your inbox for "Polar" or "Atlas". If Atlas is already activated on a Mac, Settings under About shows the email address the license is registered to, which helps track the right inbox down. Can't find it anywhere? Email support@theodorehq.com from the address you purchased with and we will send your key again.

One license covers three Macs, so often you can simply activate on the new machine. If Atlas says your key has reached its activation limit, free a slot first: on a Mac that no longer needs Atlas, open Settings, go to About and choose Deactivate This Mac - the slot frees immediately, and your groups and people stay saved there. Then enter the same key on the new Mac. Old Mac already wiped, sold or gone? Email support@theodorehq.com and we will release the slot for you.

Day to day, yes. The map, clocks, groups and time suggestions all run entirely on your Mac. Atlas verifies your license quietly in the background and is happy offline for a week at a time; normal internet use keeps that ticking over without you ever noticing. You will only need a connection to look up new cities, activate a license, or download updates.

Every purchase comes with a 30-day no-questions refund. Email support@theodorehq.com from the address you bought with and the refund is processed within five working days. UK buyers keep all their statutory consumer rights on top of that, including the remedies for faulty digital content. Not sure Atlas fits before buying? Ask first - we would genuinely rather help you decide than process a refund.

The quickest fix is to remove that person and add them again by searching their city - Atlas re-checks the time zone with Apple Maps as you add them, and the latest versions refuse to guess when a place is ambiguous. If a pin shows a dash instead of a time, Atlas is saying it cannot work out that place's zone on your Mac, and re-adding is the cure there too. Daylight saving is handled automatically, so clock changes need no action. Still looks off? Email support@theodorehq.com with the city name.

macOS is blocking calendar access, usually because the permission was declined at some point. Click the Open Settings button on the message (or go to System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Calendars) and switch Atlas on. When you come back, Atlas notices the change and retries the save on its own. Prefer not to grant calendar access at all? Choose Google, Outlook, Yahoo or the calendar-file option in Settings instead - those routes need no permission.

Two common causes. First, when the event opens as a pre-filled page in your browser, it still needs its Save button clicked - Atlas fills everything in, but Google makes the final save. Second, with several Google accounts signed in, the page may have opened in the wrong one: in Settings, under Calendar, pin the group's Google calendar and add the account email, and Atlas will open the right account every time after that. Freshly saved events can also take a few seconds to sync across devices.

Atlas keys always start with ATLAS-. Seeing this message usually means a key for one of our other apps, such as Solace or Charm, was pasted by mistake - each app has its own key, even though they share a checkout. Check your purchase email for the key beginning ATLAS- and paste that one instead. If you only ever bought Atlas and still see this, email support@theodorehq.com and we will check the order for you.

First check the system side: open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Location Services - make sure Location Services is on and Atlas is allowed. Back in Atlas, flick the Auto-detect Location toggle in Settings to try again. No luck, or you would rather not share location at all? Type your city into the Set Your City field in the You section of Settings - a manual pin works identically, and either way the lookup only ever talks to Apple Maps.

City search runs on Apple's place lookup, so the usual culprit is the internet connection - Atlas shows "Couldn't reach search" when it can't get through. Once you are back online, try again. If a small town won't come up, search the nearest larger city (the time zone will be the same) or add the country name to the search. Atlas deliberately declines to add a place when it can't confirm the real time zone, so it never shows you a wrong clock.

Atlas keeps running when its window closes - that is by design, so your people stay one click away. Bring it back by clicking the constellation icon in the menu bar and choosing Open Atlas, or click the Atlas icon in the Dock. You can also record a global shortcut in Settings, under Behaviour, to summon Atlas from inside any app. To quit completely, right-click the menu bar icon and choose Quit Atlas.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Not sure whether Atlas suits your team? Email us before buying and we will gladly help. You can also report bugs, request features, and vote on ideas right here on the feedback board.

Open Settings, go to the About tab, and look for the Support section. From there you can Report a Bug, Request a Feature, Leave a Testimonial, Review the Roadmap or browse the FAQ, each opening the matching page in your browser. Reporting a bug or requesting a feature lets you track its progress and follow the roadmap, so you can see what is coming next. You can also reach these directly at support.theodorehq.com/atlas. For anything private, email support@theodorehq.com.

No accounts, no servers, no telemetry. Your team list, settings and calendar stay on your Mac. Only three small things ever leave it: a one-time location lookup with Apple Maps to find your time zone, a licence check when you activate, and update checks. Nothing about your schedule or your people is ever sent anywhere.

At most three, all optional. Location places your own pin and sets your time zone; the coordinates go only to Apple Maps for the city lookup. Calendars lets Atlas hide times you are busy and add the meetings you approve; events are read locally and never uploaded. Automation lets Atlas open Apple Calendar on the right day after saving, so your new event is the one in front of you. Decline any of them and the rest of Atlas keeps working normally.

Everything lives on your Mac: your groups and people in a small file inside Atlas's app-data folder, your preferences alongside it, and your license safely in the macOS Keychain. Because it is ordinary local data, Time Machine and other Mac backups include it automatically - restore your Mac and Atlas comes back with your groups intact. There is no cloud copy, because nothing ever leaves the machine.