Calendar suddenly making numbers I type in notes turn into phone numbers!

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Level 1

53 points

Calendar suddenly making numbers I type in notes turn into phone numbers!

I've used Mac calendars most of my life and never seen this behavior.

Suddenly when I type numbers into the Notes section of calendar events (like a hotel confirmation number) it makes it turn into a hyperlink (!) and shows up above the date with a little telephone icon as if you would click that and call the number.

I have ZERO interest in this (!) and I need to be able to enter numbers in notes - airline travel & tail numbers, confirmation numbers, prices, all sorts of this that are used for the many events I book.

I have never seen this telephone icon appear and I've never had all my numbers turn into links - which if you go click to change or correct them launch Skype to try and dial some international call.

Good lord, there must be a way to disable this. Is this something new with Big Sur?

I was running High Sierra before I bought this new Mac with Big Sur last April but haven't encountered this behavior until today.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

iMac 27″, macOS 11.4

Posted on Sep 25, 2021 2:14 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

EdgemontFarm Author

Level 1

53 points

Sep 25, 2021 3:10 PM in response to James Brickley

Thanks for your quick reply! You are right. I just tested it on my old Mac with High Sierra - I guess it never was an issue before or noticeable because it doesn't make the little telephone appear with the hyperlink, which is really confusing if you DO want a phone number on there.

Meanwhile I solved it by just adding an x at the end of the number string to make it stop. One would think maybe they can make it a preference option one day.

Have a great weekend!

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Answer 2

Sep 25, 2021 3:03 PM in response to EdgemontFarm

Sadly, I cannot find a setting to disable this behavior it seems to be hard coded into the actual low level text box API's in macOS. Typing a number that appears to have enough digits to qualify as a phone number (international or otherwise) causes the text box API to turn it into a clickable link. So your confirmation numbers must be just the correct number of digits.

You are not the first person to notice this and it's not since Big Sur this functionality has been around for quite some time over the last several major macOS releases at least.

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