Q: How do I delete a birthday from Windows 8’s Calendar app?

Unlike regular appointments, birthdays don’t have a delete button.

I don’t want to delete any of these people, but I don’t want everybody’s birthday cluttering up my computer’s Calendar app.

What can I can do?

A: Windows 8 harvests a lot of information from your social networks, which can be a huge timesaver.

Tell the People app about your Facebook account, for example, and the app automatically stocks itself with your friends’ information: names, photos, contact information, and even Facebook posts.

However, most people also list their birthdays on Facebook. The People app passes those dates to your Calendar app, which immediately lists everybody’s birthday among your own appointments.

This works fine for people who limit their Facebook friends to their immediately family. Realistically, though, your Facebook friends include dozens of casual acquaintances. The result? Your Calendar becomes cluttered with the birthdays of strangers.

To remove those birthdays without unfriending any Facebook friends, follow these steps:

1. Open the Calendar app with a click or tap on its Start screen tile.
2. Fetch the Charms bar, and choose the Settings button.
3. When the Settings pane appears, choose Options, and the Options pane appears along the screen’s right edge.
4. In the Birthday Calendar section, click or tap the toggle switch marked Show.

That turns the toggle to Off, hiding everybody’s birthday from your Calendar app.

If you ever want to peek at everybody’s birthday, repeat these steps to toggle them back on again.

To limit the birthdays to just a few special people, add them manually into the Calendar app, just as you’d add any other appointment.