Archive Calendar events by year

Question

Level 1

27 points

Archive Calendar events by year

"Apple Calendar storage is full - how can I export previous entries by year / date range please?

Today Apple Calendar (previously iCal) has stopped letting me add entries and stopped syncing with iCloud across my devices.

It appears I have reached the limit of the number of entries I am allowed in Apple Calendars (see ~[Limits for iCloud Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks, and Maps - Apple Support](https://support.apple.com/en-us/103188)~)

(small exclamation marks by some of my calendars say "There is insufficient storage space for “Particular Name of Calendar” in account “iCloud”.)

I would like to keep an archive of my previous entries over the years before deleting them - by year / date range rather than the whole Calendar in one, across all my different colour coded calendars. Can anyone advise me how I can do this please?

Thanks

Mac mini, macOS 26.6

Posted on Oct 8, 2026 2:02 PM

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Answer 1

6x6

Level 7

25,929 points

Oct 8, 2026 6:06 PM in response to ConnieMcC

You can export a single calendar (as an ics file), or export them all (as an archive, icbu file). Here is how to do it: Import or export calendars on Mac - Apple Support (SA).

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Answer 2

6x6

Level 7

25,929 points

Oct 8, 2026 7:00 PM in response to ConnieMcC

No, both the File > Export choices will only export the events. They will stay in your calendars after the export. You would need to delete individual events to recover some space.

My understanding from the article you cite (Limits for iCloud Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks, and Maps - Apple Support) is that there is a bulk limit of 50,000 events, across all calendars. It does not indicate that a particular calendar could be oversized (except if it is your only iCloud calendar, of course).

What are your exact circumstances (number of iCloud calendars...)?
Do you want to keep a few events from the Journal calendar or would you be okay with starting from scratch (after exporting the data) in the Calendar app?

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Answer 3

ConnieMcC Author

Level 1

27 points

Oct 8, 2026 6:35 PM in response to 6x6

I'm trying to remove some of the calendar content from the iCloud quota because of this (rather astounding and confusing) message: "You've reached the iCloud storage limit for your calendars, events, and reminders (which is separate from your overall account storage) as explained here: https://support.apple.com/103188. To add more, please archive or delete old items.: "Journal"

So in this case "archive" means remove. Does "export as archive" do this, or is it just the name of a file format?

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