iCal won't sync from iPhone to Mac

Hi Rumble Fish,

It actually does sync to everything, I was having the same problem of not being able to sync my ical with my iphone, I tried everything everyone said here, but the solution is different. You have to set up your icloud on both your mac and iphone. And if you are like me your mac wasnt probably setted up.

on Iphone:

settings - icloud - turn calendar on

on Mac:

system preferences - internet accounts - click on icloud and follow the instructions (asks for itunes ID etc)

as soon as both were on icloud, it synced perfectly

Good luck

So having already taken away my ability to sync Notes between my iPod and iMac, Apple has now taken away direct syncing for Calendars, Bookmarks and Contacts as well?

Does anyone know of any third-party apps or software that will restore direct sync from device to computer without having to go through iCloud?

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/03/18/itunes-beta-local-syncing/

Is there any truth to the above news that local sync will be restored in iTunes 11.1.6?

Thanks for the heads up BKCh. I hope this rumour turns out to be true.

Check today's date........

Rats!

Didn't realize that. Had meant to reply a few days ago. Am a fellow-sufferer of this problem.

All -

I am late to this discussion, since I have only encountered this issue in the last few weeks. Accordingly, please forgive me if I seem to ask what's been asked before; apparently, this issue goes back a couple of years.

I need to sync the calendars between my iPhone5 and my iPad. I use a 3rd party calendar app called Refills and it automatically writes every calendar entry to the iOS Calendar app. I am set up in iTunes to sync all events in my calendar to my Mac (iCal). Suddenly, my new entries do not appear in iCal. As a result, those new entries do not appear on my iPad when I sync it. It appears that my only workaround right now would be to finger-poke any changes or new entries into my iPad. Not a very efficient solution.

From the discussion, it appears to me that, at this time, the only way I can synchronize my calendars is to sync them in iCloud. For many reasons, I don't really want to do that (security, accessibility, encryption, etc.), but it is not a deal-breaker, despite my reluctance. (For the record, I do have some things stored in the cloud with LastPass and Backblaze, but those are all heavily encrypted client-side before they ever leave.)

Please confirm that I have reached the correct conclusion. Since this thread is quite old and there is a wide variety of posted solutions that may or may not be current, I'd appreciate some verification.

Jeff B

Mac Pro4,1

2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

16 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 RAM

3.6 TB Disk space

OSX 10.8.5

iPhone 5

iOS 7.1.1

iPad 3rd Gen

iOS 7.1.1

(and my Mac Plus is still out in the garage...)

Yes, you are correct. The latest Mavericks update to MacOS removed the ability to sync directly from your device to your computer with iTunes. You are now only able to sync using iCloud. No other choices are available to you unless you can find a suitable third party solution.

I have not seen any reason given by Apple for the removal of this very useful function but, like you, I will not use iCloud (or any other cloud based service) for the storage of my personal and private documents.

There have been rumours that this function may be restored in a future update to MacOS but as far as I know none of this speculation has been confirmed.

Personally I am very disappointed in this change to the software and perhaps if enough users make their opinions known then Apple will reconsider.

Gary -

Thanks for confirming what I had suspected. I activated iCloud on my iPhone, iPad and Mac for Calendars only and it does sync automatically as is it supposed to.

From a marketing and user functionality perspective, I can understand why Apple would make this change. Calendars and other common functions that just magically update across several devices can be seen as quite convenient. But, remember that we still live in a world where passwords are a bother and Uncle Herb and Aunt Edna don't understand why using their kitty-cat's name as a password isn't a good idea. Keeping one's calendar secure is not really just for the paranoid. If someone were to hack your calendar, they could easily see airline trips, vacation entries and other data that could tell someone that you aren't home. You and I are among the precious few that take security seriously. And we probably knew that Target was hacked before it made the news.

One little wrinkle, though. I'm not on Mavericks yet. I'm on OSX 10.8.5, so whatever update it was that disabled the local sync function must be either in iTunes or in iOS 7.1.1. My hunch is the latter, because I didn't notice this problem until the last iOS update just a few days ago.

Thanks for the reply.

I have not yet moved to Maverick, but I have not been able to sync calendars entries from the iPad or iPhone to the Mac for some time, but the Mac can still sync to those devices. This means any new calendar entry must be entered only on the Mac. If an item is entered on an iOS device and the Mac, the sync will sync from the Mac and also keep the item that was entered on the iOS device. Only way to clear that doubling is to chose the option to replace the info on the iOS device during the sync.

This quirk seems to only be with calendars as photos and music sync fine without the cloud.

I do NOT nor will I EVER use the cloud for any of my information. I only sync among my devices and my backups are on the Mac. My information is mine only and I refuse to share it with the cloud. I do not trust any cloud storage, even Apple's.

After many efforts and research, I have recently discovered that I will never be able to sync my iPhone 5 calendar to my MacBook, unless a miracle occurs. With the option to sync via iTunes gone, I turned on iCloud backup for the calendars. Then when that never worked, I learned I need to upgrade to Mavericks, only I cannot, because the processor on my 2009 MacBook will not accomodate Mavericks.

Needless to say, this is very dissappointing, as I love my MacBook, and I have no other need to upgrade it at this time.

Sorry to hear that. ;(

iTune local sync (for my iphone 4S) is back...after I installed an update to MBA last week. The update came out a while back and didn't say what's covered. MBA now shows OS-X 10.9.3.

At the risk of sounding like I know nothing (because its true) what is MBA? My computer says there are no updates available, iTunes and my iPhone 5 are running at their most current available systems. I have still tried many times to open the settings for syncing my iPhone in iTunes, selecting "sync all calendars" and it has yet to work.

I'm operating on OS-X 10.6.8 and it says that is the most current available to my computer. Apparently it can't "handle" anything beyond that, although there is plenty of memory left on it.

Maybe I should swear at it some more? I'll try that.