GeburtstagsChecker

Version 1.8
© 2001-2019 Steffen Kamp & earthlingsoft

What is GeburtstagsChecker?

The purpose of GeburtstagsChecker is to remind you of your friends’ birthdays and anniversaries. “Geburtstag” is the german word for birthday, hence the name GeburtstagsChecker.

What does GeburtstagsChecker cost?

It is free. However, I would appreciate any donations and comments, bug reports or improvement suggestions addressed to steffen@earthlingsoft.net.

What features does GeburtstagsChecker have?

GeburtstagsChecker shows all birthdays in a definable time range from today in a little window in one of the four corners of your screen. You can freely arrange the format in which the birthdays are displayed using the Preferences dialog.

You can select to have GeburtstagsChecker remind you of birthdays that you might have missed (e.g. that took place in the time between today and the last time you quitted GeburtstagsChecker).

For each birthday you can choose if it should show up in the announce window at all. Thus you can collect the birthdays of all of your friends without getting reminded for each one. You can also lock birthdays, which means that they show up in the announce window all the time, even if they are outside your chosen time range.

GeburtstagsChecker automatically detects when the day changes. So you can have GeburtstagsChecker running all the time without ever missing one birthday.

If there are any birthdays today, you can make GeburtstagsChecker display a special icon in the Dock as a reminder.

If you set your Preferences so that the announce window should automatically be shown, GeburtstagsChecker will display the window when its content changes (e.g. when a new birthday is announced or there are birthdays today or you might have missed a birthday). You can also have the icon in the Dock bouncing to notify you.

How do I make GeburtstagsChecker start automatically when I switch on my Mac?

Easy: Just add GeburtstagsChecker to the list of “Login Items” in your System Preferences.

Does GeburtstagsChecker use the Mac OS X Address Book?

Yes. Birthdays stored in the system-wide Address Book are automatically displayed. Although this is the preferred method of storing your birthdays, you can also save your birthdays in a special GeburtstagsChecker list file.

You can tell if a birthday is stored in the Address Book or the GeburtstagsChecker birthday file from the icon on the left in the all birthdays window. Note that you cannot edit person’s names for birthdays stored in the Address Book – just use the Address Book instead.

What’s with birthdays on February 29?

Usually, people born on February 29 celebrate their birthdays on March 1 in non-leapyears. Some people prefer celebrating on February 28. With GeburtstagsChecker you can choose which way you prefer.

I know day and month but not the year of someone’s birthday. What should I do?

No problem at all. In the birthday list you can safely omit entering the year. So you don’t have to enter any fictious year.

I have all my birthdays in a database/spreadsheet. How do I get them into GeburtstagsChecker?

If you already have your birthdays in the system-wide Address Book there is nothing more to do – GeburtstagsChecker automatically displays birthdays from the Address Book. Otherwise, there is a text file import function:

GeburtstagsChecker has a text file import in the File menu. The text file must conform to the following rules.

  1. Every birthday has to be on a line of its own.
  2. Every line must contains exactly one tab which separates the name and the birthdate. The order of date and name do not matter. If a name consists of multiple parts, these must not be separated by a tab. Spaces should typically be used instead.
  3. GeburtstagsChecker tries to recognise the date using the following fixed formats (D = day, M = month, Y = year with century):
  4. Additionally, on Mac OS X 10.10 and later a date import is tried according to the region setting in the System Settings. This should properly import MM/DD/YYYY if you are in the United States and DD/MM/YYYY if you are in the United Kingdom.

A leading “0” preceding one digit days or months is optional.

I hope every database or spreadsheet should give you the opportunity to save your birthdays in such a format. If, however, you think that I have forgotten the one really important format, please let me know.

Where can I find the latest version?

The latest version of GeburtstagsChecker should be available from the earthlingsoft homepage. You can also use the command “Check Version” from the “GeburtstagsChecker” menu to find out if there is a new version available (requires active Internet connection).

Legal stuff

Although GeburtstagsChecker has been thoroughly testet, earthlingsoft can make no warranty that GeburtstagsChecker is free of bugs. Therefore earthlingsoft cannot be made reponsible for any data loss or missed birthdays in connection with the use of GeburtstagsChecker.

Version History

1.8.1 (2019-05-31)
1.8 (2019-05-16)
1.7.1 (2008-05-20)
1.7 (2008-05-16)
1.6 (2006-08-01)
1.5.3
1.5.2
1.5.1
1.5
1.0.6 (not public)
1.0.1 – 1.0.5
1.0