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Calendar colors keep changing

I haven't seen a question about this posted since iOS 5 came out (and most seem to come from the last decade).


I'm running iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 and my iPad 2. I use both iCloud calendars and I subscribe to a number of Google calendars, as well. This problem only manifests itself with the subscribed calendars. I'm glad that you can finally customize the color of a subscribed calendar, but your choices don't stick. I want my work calendar to be red, my travel calendar to be blue, my personal calendar to be green, and a fourth orange. I have set these by clicking on the Calendars tab at the top to show the list of calendars, then tapping Edit, and then setting the colors.


I don't know when it does this, but it will always change the colors to something else. And it's not consistent between the iPhone and iPad. So, for example, the work calendar, which I had set as red, is now purple on my iPad. It's green on my iPhone. I realize the color might not sync between devices, but if I set it as red on both, why is it changing them to something else?


Only thing I can tell is perhaps it happened when the iPad's screen shut off, or maybe when it synced.


Is this a known issue? Is there a workaround?

Posted on Oct 27, 2011 8:19 AM

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Posted on Nov 1, 2011 10:55 PM

I have five subscribed calendars on my iPad, and four of them are on my iPhone as well. And since updating to iOS 5, I have been having the same issue. This does not happen with any of my iCloud calendars, just the subscribed ones. Unfortunately, I don't have a fix either. I was here looking for one myself. But I thought I'd chime in just to say I'm dealing with the same thing.

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Nov 1, 2011 10:55 PM in response to edwardaggie98

I have five subscribed calendars on my iPad, and four of them are on my iPhone as well. And since updating to iOS 5, I have been having the same issue. This does not happen with any of my iCloud calendars, just the subscribed ones. Unfortunately, I don't have a fix either. I was here looking for one myself. But I thought I'd chime in just to say I'm dealing with the same thing.

Nov 3, 2011 7:05 AM in response to seanlun

Hi all, same problem here and I'm glad this issue has finally come to light. I have two Google calendars and two subscribed calendars on my iPhone. I can manually change the colours of the subscribed calendars, but upon the first fetching of data the colours simply change. I have no idea where the default colours are coming from.


Having the wrong colours really ruins the user experience of the calendar app, as now I have to think twice about what calendar I am viewing rather than intuitively knowing by the colour.


Please recognise and sort this out Apple!

Nov 21, 2011 9:33 AM in response to edwardaggie98

Just posted a similar question - wish I'd seen this first. I have the same problem - what's odd is that the calendar color does NOT change on my iPhone - just my iPad. Only thing I can point to that might be different is that I recently restored my phone to factory settings, and have not done so with the iPad. Maybe restoring & starting fresh (i.e., not restore from backup) eliminates the problem...

Dec 22, 2011 4:19 AM in response to edwardaggie98

Same problem here!


Subscribed calendar (*.ics file) will hold its custom color, no matter what different color I select on my iPhone 4s. It changes the color as I choose it, but when resyncing with the server that hosts the *.ics file, the custom color is reset. 😠


No (more) problems with my Google echange calendar, the selected color stays the same (was a problem with iOS 4.x.x). 🙂


@Apple: what´s wrong? 😟

Apr 23, 2012 12:47 PM in response to lel87

I have the same problem with ONE subscribed calendar on iPhone 4. I have three subscribed calendars and three Google calendars on iPhone, iPad and Mac and one of the subcribed calendars keeps changing to Purple no matter what i try to keep it as Orange. The funny thing is the IPad and Mac are not affected, just the iPhone.

Hope there's a fix in the works.

Jun 10, 2012 2:04 AM in response to edwardaggie98

Just ran across this same issue and found a mention elsewhere that the color of a subscribed calendar can only be set the first time the calendar is added to iCal. After pasting the URL adjust the settings in the panel (name, color, reminders...). Although you can access that same panel later, subsequent changes after the calendar is added don't stick and the calendar will revert to this original setting.

Jul 6, 2012 5:12 AM in response to edwardaggie98

I've got what i think is a pretty good fix to this.


subscribing to calandars via iCal on your Mac is the way to go. you can subscribe, set the colour and tell it to push via iCloud to your iOS devices. they come through with the correct colour and stay that way.


all good 🙂


however, i can't seem to delete the subscribed calandars i have on my iPhone. every time i delete the subscription, they just come back in again! quite annoying, but at least you can untick it so that it doesn't show up. which it would go away for good though.


much happier now i'm controlling everything through iCal and iCloud 🙂

Jul 9, 2012 1:06 AM in response to JasonGough

This worked for me as well, but now I have the same problem in iCal. I set the original color, but if I want to change the color it gives me an error. Easy to work around, just resubscribe and choose the new color, but I shouldn't have to do that. I wonder what it is about subscribed calendars that won't let you change the color. Also, even though you are syncing them through iCloud, they do not show up on iCloud.com.

Calendar colors keep changing

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