Notes and To Dos Syncing on .Mac

Question

Notes and To Dos Syncing on .Mac

Where do the ToDos get synced to on .Mac? And where do the Notes go? An in box? And what do I need to set up to make this happen?

macbook, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Feb 20, 2008 2:04 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 20, 2008 2:16 PM in response to garagecapital11

Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for ".mac sync". You will find numerous articles including one on using it for information such as notes, etc. Apple also has the .Mac Help Center.

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Answer 2

Feb 20, 2008 5:45 PM in response to Kappy

Yeah, I wasted an hour or so looking around for the right answers. What a data dump and so poorly organized. Hence, I ask a humble question (see above) in hopes that someone can provide an answer or two.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 20, 2008 7:47 PM in response to garagecapital11

Does this mean your problem is solved?

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Answer 4

Feb 20, 2008 8:22 PM in response to Kappy

Nope.

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 20, 2008 8:38 PM in response to garagecapital11

Well, I'm not sure what your question really is. When you use the .Mac sync for bookmarks, todos, notes, preferences, etc., they are transferred to your .Mac account's disk space so that you can then update them as well as sync other computers from the data stored in your .Mac account. Is this what you are asking or did you want to know specifically where on your iDisk the data are stored?

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Answer 6

Feb 20, 2008 8:45 PM in response to Kappy

Ok, when I go to .Mac I can see my Notes in my in box because I stores them an in an in-box under Notes. I did the same for To Do, but cannot find them. I assume they are there and not just in .Mac limbo, in which I can only download them on another Mac computer, right? I should just be able to view them on any computer, right?

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 20, 2008 8:54 PM in response to garagecapital11

I guess I'm confused. Are you doing this through Mail or .Mac web mail? I think I'm under the assumption you are using Mail and synching your Mail, Address Book, etc. using .Mac sync. I believe that's not the case if I'm reading you correctly.

I'll try to respond again in the morning as I'm heading off to sleep now.

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Answer 8

Feb 20, 2008 8:58 PM in response to Kappy

I am in Mail.app. I sync my ToDos and Notes in my xxxxx@mac.com folders under To Do and Notes. I presume they sync to my .Mac account. But when I go to my .Mac account I see Notes in my In box and To Dos are no where to be found. Where are they?

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Answer 9

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 21, 2008 8:38 AM in response to garagecapital11

This may be a bug. I've seen it reported before. It's been reported to Apple. Have you tried syncing another computer from your .Mac account to see if the To Dos are included? The data may be hidden to prevent others who might access your iDisk from finding them.

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Answer 10

Feb 21, 2008 3:44 PM in response to Kappy

Where would I look for the "to dos" on .mac? I see my contacts. I see my e-mail. And I figured out that the notes are synced, oddly, into my in mail box. So given that last oddity, maybe the to dos are there somewhere I just have looked in the right place on the screen. Weird. (There are no calendars, either. But I have been told that's SOP for Apple and I would have to use a third party software like iCalX to view them without downloading and resyncing to a Mac. Is the same true for the to dos?)

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Answer 11

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 21, 2008 7:24 PM in response to garagecapital11

I really don't know where they are or if they are. I know that mail, contacts, notes, to dos, calendars, and bookmarks all sync because I sync them every day to my .Mac account. All my computers then sync from the same account so that all the data are up to date on every computer. I've never bothered to look for where the data are.

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Answer 12

Feb 22, 2008 6:07 PM in response to garagecapital11

They're stored on the mail server in a hidden* IMAP mail folder called "Apple Mail To Do".

(* Hidden by the .Mac web interface and Apple Mail client; you'll see the folder on other IMAP servers like Courier, Gmail, or even Exchange.)

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Answer 13

Feb 22, 2008 7:33 PM in response to Skeuomorph

So, how can I view them? If I can't using .Mac (which seems pretty weird) can I using Gmail somehow?

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Answer 14

Feb 22, 2008 8:30 PM in response to garagecapital11

Ok, when you sync with .Mac, this data is stored on your "iDisk", in Library/Application Support/SyncSerices. You can see that in your online .Mac iDisk web browsing pane. But it's not in a form you can use. It's designed to be synchronized with other Macs.

On your own Mac, you can see the To Do items in Apple Mail, and in iCal (click the Thumbtack in the lower right).

If your email account is something besides .Mac (such as Gmail) and you set it for IMAP mode, you can see in your online email program a folder (or Gmail label) called Apple Mail To Do, and your To Do items are in there.

.Mac is designed to sync all kinds of data among your multiple Macs. It does that fantastically.

But if you want things to show up on the web, you have to sync with things that have web interfaces. Apple Mail works pretty well with Gmail, extremely well with Exchange 2007's IMAP support, and very well with a number of other IMAP based web services. With those services, Apple Mail creates folder that you can look at on the server with notes and to do items visible to you as though they were regular email items.

Alternatively, in iCal, you can publish a calendar including the To Do items, and publish it into your .Mac web page or .Mac web group, for you or your group of friends, to see. When you do that, the dialog tells you your web and calendar URLS:

The web view: http://ical.mac.com/username/Your Calendar
A calender view: webcal://ical.mac.com/username/Your Calendar.ics

However, some of those calendars don't show To Do items, just regular appointments or events. So if you're using one of those web calendars, you'd want to make an iCal event instead of just a To Do.

If the web calendar you publish to doesn't have a place to see To Do items, you can easily make To Do items into events:

+Q: CAN I CHANGE AN EVENT INTO A TODO OR A TODO INTO AN EVENT?+

+A: Mac OS 10.3 or earlier: No.+

+A: Mac OS 10.4: To change an event into a ToDo, hold down the "Option" key and drag it into the ToDo list. To change a ToDo into an event, hold down the "Option" key and drag it onto the the date of your choice.+

If someone has an answer of an online iCal subscriber that can pull from the .Mac URLs when you publish to .Mac, and that online calendar shows the .Mac To Do items, give us a link. There's got to be some....

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Answer 15

Feb 22, 2008 9:56 PM in response to garagecapital11

Ok. Interesting. I have set up my main Gmail account as IMAP, and my Macbook Mail.app set up new new notes and to-folders for them. So, I create and store in those folders and they get automatically IMAPed up to the Gmail account, right? Minor qubble: The to do list isn't as neat in a mail box as it is on my Mail.app. But heck it's just a back up and remote. Shame it doesn't sync with Google's home pages do lists. Bigger quibble: Now that this is set up, I find that when I use .Mac to back up my contacts, I crash Mail and most other programs that are open. I have my contacts backed up on my iPhone (and GMail) so I don't think I even need .Mac anymore, do I. Is there a way to back up contacts and Icals on my Gmail home pages?

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