How to Delete Duplicate Events in Calendar?

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Level 4

1,361 points

How to Delete Duplicate Events in Calendar?

Searching for answers in other posts didn't bring up much.

I see duplicate events in Calendar on my Mac but the duplicates are not visible when I view Calendar in iCloud via Safari. My iPad Calendar do not show the duplicate events, which confirms that the duplicates are only on my Mac.

These are within different "calendars" in Calendar. So I'm not talking about duplicate calendars. Just duplicate events. Apparently they were saved to Mac when I signed out of iCloud recently.

But how to delete the duplicates? There's no "on my Mac" section in Calendar.

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on May 20, 2019 10:44 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Ferd II

Level 10

104,323 points

May 21, 2019 11:23 AM in response to Ken2G5

Are there any common details which may identify the source of the duplicates?

Other than answering that question, you may want to try some cache removal.

Backup your iCloud Calendars.

Quit Calendar.

Then paste this text ~/Library into the Finder Menu>Go>Go to Folder...window and select "Go." This will open the Users Library Folder.

Open the Calendars Folder which is in that Library Folder, and move any any files with "Cache" listed in the name field to your Desktop.

Next open the Preferences Folder in that same Library Folder and move the com.apple.iCal.plist file to the Desktop.

Log out/in or restart and open Calendar.

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Answer 2

Ferd II

Level 10

104,323 points

May 21, 2019 7:28 AM in response to Ken2G5

Perhaps, your "On My Mac" calendars are hidden. I also use iCloud Calendars, so I do not have any "On My Mac" calendars, but if I go to Calendar>Preferences...>Accounts>iCloud>Account Information, and deselect "Enable this account" the "On My Mac" calendars appear. Be aware that when you do that all of your iCloud calendars will disappear, but they will return if you re-enable the account.

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Answer 3

Ken2G5 Author

Level 4

1,361 points

May 21, 2019 10:34 AM in response to Ferd II

Thank you for the reply. I'm still missing something.

When I do that (uncheck "Enable this account" for iCloud), yes everything disappears. But the duplicates are also gone.

It's hauntingly peculiar because maybe I've already tried deleting events on my Mac. The only "calendars" that remain in Calendar when iCloud is turned off are Home and Work. They're both checked on. But the duplicates are not visible. I've tried again deleting these two (Home and Work). Then quitting Calendar, then relaunching Calendar, then turning iCloud back on, all while looking at my iPad to make sure my Calendar events are still intact with no duplicates. Also went to iCloud dot com using Safari browser to look at Calendar. Seems intact with no duplicates in the cloud. I recently did the same deletion of Home and Work after signing off my iCloud account in System Preferences.

What else to try?

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