Can’t restore deleted data to iCloud

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Can’t restore deleted data to iCloud

I have a third party to-do manager that I've used for some time that has previously synced to MobileMe, and recently had it start syncing to iCloud after everything was updated to iOS 5 and 10.7.2. Things worked fine for a while until today I noticed on he to-do app that my categories were duplicated on my iPad. I deleted the duplicates and everything seemed ok. Then I used my iPod touch later and found the duplicates were still there even after I synced with iCloud. So, I deleted them again. This time, disaster struck. Not only the duplicates were deleted, but the original categories and their corresponding calendars were deleted as well. Of course, iCloud faithfully deleted the data from my iPad. I knew if I launched iCal on my MacBook Pro, it would also have its calendar data deleted as well, so I turned off Wi-fi and backed up all the calendar data. When I turned on Wi-fi again, the calendar data was deleted, as expected.

So, I tried to restore the backed up data to iCal. Everything worked... then it synced with iCloud and everything I'd restored was deleted again. Multiple attempts give the same results. The only backup data that's easily accessible is on the laptop, although it looks like the iPad data was backed up to iCloud before the disaster struck. I've tried manually syncing calendar data to the iPad then trying to merge its data with iCloud, but it doesn't seem to work right either. I need to get the calendar data back where it was, and preferably all my reminders as well (which seem to be comingled with the calendar data). Any thoughts on what I can do to get things back to the way they were?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), iPad 2, iPod touch 4G

Posted on Oct 20, 2011 8:05 PM

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Answer 1

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John E. Buck Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 20, 2011 9:52 PM in response to John E. Buck

OK, with a little research and trial and error, I JUST figured it out! Here is the solution:

First of all, if you saved your iCal data as an iCal archive, it won't work with iCloud syncing. However, it will get you to a solution. Follow these steps and everything should work:

1. Turn off any Internet connection. If you don't, iCloud will keep deleting it.

2. Restore your iCal data with the iCal archive you'd saved.

3. Next, for each calendar you have, select it, then select File>Export>Export... and save each calendar you want to sync back to iCloud individually. If you want to restore tasks, you have to do the same with each task list. It seems you have to have different names for task lists and calendars, so make sure you know which one is which.

5. Turn on your Internet connection again. Go to iCloud.com to see what's on the calendar.

4. If you have any data left in iCloud, I would delete it to start fresh. After this is done, make sure you have created the calendars and task lists you want.

5. Start up iCal. When it syncs with iCloud, everything will disappear again, but this is ok. Make sure you have the same calendars and task lists as are on iCloud.com.

6. Double-click on each saved calendar and task list .ics files and match them to their respective calendars and task lists that you want to sync. iCal should now import and upload the data to iCloud correctly. You don't have to wait for each calendar to fully upload--you can do them sequentially and they'll all upload sequentially.

Hopefully this should work for you. If you are using a third party task manager as I was (which somehow caused the duplicates as far as I know), I ended up deleting and reinstalling the app and resetting the sync from scratch, getting all the data from iCloud. With a little tweaking, everything is back to normal. Whew!

Hope this helps.

John

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