Lion: Where does iCal store its data?

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Level 1

5 points

Lion: Where does iCal store its data?

I upgraded to Lion from OS X Snowleopard (current release) last week.

My calendar was a mess before the update and it carried thru to Lion. Now, I'd like to start over with a brand new iCal database.

So does anyone know where Lion stores its iCal data on the hard drive?

I am assuming that if I delete the files in that folder, then iCal will create brand new calandars when I start it up. If that assumption is wrong, then please advise.

Regards,

KJH

iMac8,1, Mac OS X (10.7), Other iMac8.1's still on OS X (10.6

Posted on Jul 25, 2011 10:31 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

mfranx

Level 1

18 points

Aug 1, 2011 8:37 PM in response to KenHiggins

All you need to do is select the calendar from the "calendar" button on the upper left in iCal, highlight the calendar you want to delete and then select delete from the "edit" menu. In the same way you can create a new calendar.

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Answer 2

Aug 3, 2011 1:44 PM in response to mfranx

...unless the button reveals no calendars, yet they persist on your system. I, too, would like to know the actual physical location so that I can remove them and start fresh.

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Answer 3

KenHiggins Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 5, 2011 4:46 AM in response to KenHiggins

Thank you for your replies to my post and I have a solution to provide.

The objective here was to completely clean out Lion's iCal calendars and start over - fresh with no events at all.

WARNING: I did not test this solution where CALDAV, Exchange or shared calendars are used. You can check for CALDAV/Exchange accounts by looking at your iCal Accounts Tab for these entries. Caveat emptor!

Assuming you have none of the above conditions, then here is what I did with the help of the Apple Technicians.

1) Quit iCal

2) Go to the ~/Library/Calendars folder and delete ALL the content.

By default, Lion hides the home library folder ( ~/Library ). That threw me off. The Lion calendars are contained in ~/Library/Calendars. To see this folder you can use the Finder / Go / Go to Folder command. We deleted the entire contents of the Calendars folder.

3) Go to the ~/Library/Preferences folder and delete the following entries:

com.apple.ical.helper.plist

com.apple.ical.helper.plist.lockfile

com.apple.ical.plist

com.apple.ical.plist.lockfile

4) Restart iCal

5) Use the Calendars button at the top right hand side of the iCal's calendar display window to delete any old Calendars that are hanging around.

I had several calendars. To get rid of them, I highlighted each calendar (one at a time) and hit a Control+click to bring up a mini-menu that has a "delete" command. Delete each calendar.

iCal must have at least 1 calendar to use. So if you try to delete the last of your "old" calendar's iCal will bark and tell you that it can't delete it.

Work around that by using the iCal File menu command to create a new empty calendar. Then delete the last of your original calendars. After that, the new empty calendar will be all that is left. You can rename this to anything you want.

Notes to avoid confusion:

- Birthday events are created from birthdays in your Address Book. You will see them if your iCal Preferences (General Tab) "Show Birthdays calendar" is checked. To not see them, uncheck this check box.

- iCal may also re-create events from invitations that you have in your Mail inbox. The General Tab of the Mail Preferences has a check box called "Add invitations to iCal". You have two choices "automatically" or "never". Set that according to your preference. "Never" presumably stops mail from sending these events to iCal. I chose to keep this on "automatically"

At the end of the day, mFranx may have had an easier solution but I did not test that. If I could re-award him with the "correct answer" I would do so . However, I don't know how to do that. Perhaps someone can provide input on this.

thanks for your help

KJH

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