iCloud deleted my Outlook calendar appointments, contacts, and tasks - HELP!!

Did you look through the discussions?

I hope you get an answer. Same thing happened to me.

I am using

Outlook 2010

Windows 7

2 apple id's 1 for Itunes 1 for MobileMe.

The same thing happened to me and I was able to fix it by exporting the iCal calender to an .ics file and then dragging the file into Outlook. You can just drag the file icon into the actual calendar grid on the Outlook window. When I migrated to iCloud, iCal set up separate calendars for each Outlook category, so I had to export about a dozen .ics files to capture all the appointments.

I am not a techie by any means, but it appears to me that it is Apple's intent to have your iCal account on iCloud take the place of any other calenrdar accounts you may have. It transfers all your appointments to iCloud and then wipes the other calendars clean. This makes sense if you're just moving from MobileMe's iCal to iCloud's iCal, but if you have another calendar account in another location that you need to synchronize but maintain, you're in trouble because those appointments get absorbed then deleted, too. My Outlook account is on a virtual Exchange server that is maintained by my employer and that others in my organization must have access to.

I think I'm just going to add the Outlook Exchange account to iCal on all your devices and forget about iCloud's calendar's function for now.

Hope this helps!!

This also happened to me. 3.5 hours on the phone with Apple and I have my data back, my dups are gone, but my Outlook color-coding of each calendar item is still gone (hours of work), and it still trumps the default 15 minute reminder for each item. You CAN resent reminders for items manually, but it doesn't support your default reminder settings in Outlook. Call support, ask for Carlos, in the highler level of support. He knows how to fix this.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, same just happened to me. Main outlook calendar was deleted, and then moved to the iCloud calendar, where five years of appointments were all duplicated. Then it started invading my Nokia calendar which is my main mobile access to diary. I'm afraid this has killed iCloud for me. Will try accessing backed up outlook files tomorrow from remote harddrive. Thanks for the iCal idea.

The suggestion by dukenewt to uncheck "mail" in the iCloud applet that pops up from the iCloud Control Panel was a simple and excellent solution to getting Outlook 2010 up and running again. I couldn't even access my email from other accounts because Outlook keep getting hung up. Thanks dukenewt!

Copying and wiping is actually intended. Microsoft won't allow any changes made to the default folders, so in order for the iCloud calendars to work, you have to put the data in a seperate section for CalDAV. The wiping is so you don't have duplicates.

For your Apple ID, pick one and use it. If moving from MM, you can use that, or take the opportunity to back up data and use a preferred ID if there is one.

Always back up data before you make any changes(like iCloud). It normally "Just works" like it did for me, but all PC's are different.

After my comment above, I spent the last week trying out iCloud and the calendar sync. I re-activated it very carefully. Outlook has now kept its own calendar file, and created a duplicate iCloud version of the appointments. This merge happened once off. New appointments added to the main Outlook calendar do not sync. iCloud has also duplicated everything. My phone now bleeps twice for every single appointment! I know how to switch off various calendars in Outlook, but the whole thing keeps multiplying. Will now try to remove all clouds from my horizon, unless anyone has a better idea, and go back to using iTunes to sync. No silver lining yet.

Just select everything in icloud and export it back to outlook.

Honest to gosh...I swear iCloud is a code name for a virus Apple has unleashed on Outlook.

All of my contacts in Outlook 2010 are gone. They simply aren't there any longer since whatever happened when I put iCloud on my Windows 7 system.

When I open Outlook, on the left of that window are the various selectable views...i.e. Mail, Calendar, Contacts etc. When I select Contacts, I have two options. I can either select "My Contacts" (which is Outlooks contacts....and that's the one that is EMPTY) or I can select iCloud contacts. The iCloud contacts is where I see my contacts.

Why did iCloud "suck" them all out of Outlook? Why did iCloud then delete them from Outlook? ....and the $99 question is how do I get them back to My Contacts in Outlook.

Look folks....DO NOT (repeat) DO NOT ever trust anyt software application from any manufacturer or service provider that has the word "cloud" attached. If you haven't already lost data to a cloud provider...you will...period.

Why wasn't I given warning that Apple was about to delete all of my contacts from my local computer, hard drive and Outlook? Am I missing something here?

Anyway...can anyone help me understand what I need to do to get the Contacts back from iCloud. That's horrible people. People are people...and sooner or later someone is going to lose your data...or worse ..steal your data.

I'm done...any help appreciated.

You can copy or export a copy of your contacts from icloud back to your Outlook contacts. You can do all of that from your Outlook contacts screen.

Then you need to either remove or delete the icloud contacts. You can un-check it in icloud, otherwise you will have two files.

PS: I chose to copy it back to outlook, but then use iclud for the contacts anyway, since (unlike calendars) it does sync contacts well between all devices. I kept the outlook file copy just for safety, but "moved" it to the "Suggested contacts" folder so it wouldn't appear insted of the synced icloud version, on other devices. Just sort of stores the original document in the "suggested" folder as reference or backup.

Dear 1wrc. I do not know who you are but these glib answers are not helping at all. MyTonkaToys has a valid point along with all of us who have tried to use iCloud. When I was in an organisation of 3500 people, the IT department labelled me a "power user". Last year I won a 9 month battle against Dell and got a free replacement computer. ICLOUD IS NOT WORKING WELL AND IF WE USERS WHO ARE ON THIS FORUM ARE SAYING SO, THEN ALL THE GLIB ANSWERS ARE NOT HELPING AND THE NORMAL USER IS GOING TO THROW ICLOUS BACK AT YOU. I guess it becomes a matter of Mr Gates not really wanting your systems to be able to work well with his systems, although that may be undully paranoid. Go and read some Zuckerberg and come back and tell us when the big guys agree to play nicely together. I know this forum is meant to be positive, but really, this is getting pathetic.

PS Please excuse the aweful spelling mistakes in my response. I can only attribute it to the late hour and the lack of an overly instrisive spellll chequer.

His answers weren't glib, at least the last couple I read, he was stating what he did and answering what other people were asking.

You can say what you want about "power user" or "won a lawsuit" and that is as real as the name you are using on these forums. Your spellchecker on your browser should have caught many, if not all, of your mistakes so you can't really blame that.

The amount of users on this forum having negative impacts are a small percentage of the actual iCloud user base, and those that chose not to use the help available(expresslane, help files).

The fact remains that many issues with Outlook is due to the fact that you cannot affect the default folders, so your contacts and calendars, in order to sync with the protocols iCloud uses(CalDAV and I think CardDAV) it has to create it's own section via addins. To effect this, and remove duplicate, it copies your info into the iCloud section and deletes the section that will not sync.