Technology at Geneseo Community School District 228
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5 Mar
Time Machine is a great backup tool and usually works pretty flawlessly.  One area that could be improved is in recovering iCal Calendars.  To recover your iCal Calendars from a specific time you have to jump through a few hoops and do a few steps that may not seem very intuitive.  Here is how:
1.  Make Sure iCal is closed and not running.
2.  First Connect your backup Time Machine Device and Turn off your WIFI (and disconnect Ethernet if hard wired)
3.  Next Click on Finder and click on the word GO | Go to Folder
4.  Type in ~/Library
5.  Now Click on Time Machine and Enter Time Machine
6.  Using Time Machine go back in time to the date where your Calendars were good.  Now in the Finder windows find the folder Calendars and click to restore this entire folder.  You can Restore it to your Desktop.
7.  Exit Time Machine and Drag / Copy this folder Calendars on your desktop to your Library Folder.  You can click again on Finder | Go to Folder | ~/Library if you missing the windows.  (Step 2 Again).
A message will appear letting you know there is already a Calendar folder,  click on REPLACE or Replace All.
7.  Now Restart the Computer.  Do Not Open iCal yet.  You must first restart the computer or logout first and then after you are logged back in, then start iCal.  Your Calendars will be back (you may need to wait a minute or it to and you may see a message saying restoring calendar events.
After Restoring the Calendar Folder and copying it to ~/Library (Replacing the Folder) Make sure to reboot the computer before starting iCal.
Thats it Calendars are restored.  A bit of hassle but can be done.
22 Responses for "Restore iCal Calendars from Time Machine Backup in OS X 10.8 or 10.9"
I have tried this method, but when i reconnect to the internet, i find that my restored calendars are overwritten by iCloud!
is there a way around this?
thanks and regards,
Eli Ezra
I have followed these directions and my calendars repopulate for a moment but then the data disappears. How can I get it to stay?
that´s exactly what happen to me. Is there a solution?
Thanks! This tip saved my day!
I have the exact same problem. Has anyone found a solution?
will this work with 10.10 Yosemite?
YES! Thanks very much for this write up!
Worked like a charm on OS 10.9.5.
Not sure, I try to stay away from new Apple OS’s until they get to version 10.10.1 or 2.
I’ve lost all of my past entries on my calendar. I tried to follow your process‚Ķ However, I don’t know what files that are under calendar to target time machine on. Do I NOT open the file and just do the whole thing? Thanks David
Ok‚Ķ I did restore on entire calendar folder‚Ķ. Still, all of my entries for years are gone. I think perhaps that I changed some setting in Calendar that caused initial loss. Seems like now it says I only have cloud calendar but I never used the cloud. My version of calendar that was on server isn’t there any more? Is there some setting that would get me back to original calendar that’s not on iCloud? I never had calendar on iCloud as far as I know.
Thanks…. what settings might bring it back? Even after restoring to earlier phase?
I need to restore both contacts and calendar. I am running 10.10.1, now, on my iMac. When I follow your steps for opting out of WiFi, do Go To folder and type in ~/Library, when I enter Time Machine, the address changes to MAC HD/Library/Application Support/ and neither address nor calendar folders are around. I.E., the Apple-ettes won’t like me access the place I need to. If there is a workaround for this, too, please let me know! Thank you.
Can I just say, from over here in the wet wintery UK, you have saved my electronic life!!! I could not find a post anywhere else on the web that made any sense to a technoklutz like me. Many, many , MANY thanks..
Update: I spoke to soon – as soon as I connect back to the internet, the calendar gets overwritten with all sorts of random errors. The mystery is that I am not connected to icloud so why does turning wifi back on have this effect. I have tried it six times and the same thing happens.
Aaargh.
Update @: The following restored stability to my restoring process:
Deleting
~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache
and
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist
with thanks to
http://kb.mit.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=12386508
for another set of nice clear simple comprehensive instructions, like yourselves.
Cheers guys!
Thank you! I also found this as a helpful work around and am breathing a sign of relief now. Thank God for Time Machine and message boards!
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3499400
Thank you JJ! Your instruction to delete the calendar cache & iCal .plist files saved saved my calendars, and put an end to this headache.
Time machine restore works fine, but as soon as wifi re-enabled, iCloud wipes out the newly restored calendar. Here’s how I got around it. Before re-enabling Wifi, select the iCloud calendar you want to keep. File/export to your desktop. This creates an .ics file of the desired calendar. Turn on wifi. The iCloud calendar from the backup will again be wiped out. No problem, recreate a new iCloud Calendar with the exact name. Drag the .ics file from your desktop to the new iCloud calendar. The contents will be added, and you’re good to go. Cumbersome, but it works!
Easy trick to it:
1. Follow all the steps outlined in the original post, but disconnect ALL your devices from iCloud.
2. Once the restored calendar is appearing in iCal (before reconnecting to the internet)select it in the calendar sidebar, then export the relevant calendar to your desktop. (file/export)
3. Close iCal, reconnect to the internet, open ical again. The desired calendar will most likely have now disappeared.
4. Create a new calendar in iCal, within iCloud – File/New Calendar/iCloud
5. Import the saved .iCS file that you exported in step 2, to the new calendar that you’ve created.
6. Reactivate iCloud on all of your devices and wait for everything to sync back up again.
A few hoops, but much less invasive than deleting library cache files etc. (which didn’t work for me anyway)
🙂
You saved my life. Thank you!!!
THANK YOU!!
Saved me so much stress!
6 years of data restored 🙂
Thank you very much! I struggled with iCal trouble all week, and this resolved my problem. I was missing the reboot step (running 10.9.5).
Don & Wallace thank you soooooo much I lost our business calendar and I was having a heart attack, it was just as described I would restore and it would disappear, but your export trick worked perfectly. Can’t thank you enough!!
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