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iCal restore from Time Machine backup

I accidentally deleted some iCal appointments, does anyone know how I can restore them from Time Machine? It seems a bit cryptic in the Library files

iCal-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 3, 2012 5:25 PM

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Posted on Apr 3, 2012 5:31 PM

Greetings,


When you restore your calendars from Time Machine you are restoring the entire set of calendars. There isn't an easy way to pick and choose specific events as all the events live together.


  1. Open iCal
  2. Go to Calendars > Go Offline
  3. Go to iCal > Quit iCal
  4. Restore your Calendars folder from Time Machine from Home > Library > Calendars from a point in time when the information you wanted was present. Be aware that any data added after that point in time will be lost.
  5. Open iCal
  6. Highlight each calendar one at a time on the left hand side and go to File > Export > Export and save the resulting calendar to the desktop.
  7. Go to Calendars > Go Online
  8. If the calendars delete themselves (which sometimes happens when syncing is involved) you can reimport them from the ics files on your desktop.



Hope that helps!

34 replies

Jun 3, 2016 5:15 AM in response to dbserious

I've run through these steps:


After logging out and back in my iCal is still blank!?!


Looking at Library I see that upon restarting some new files (other than those I restored from TM) have been created including a .calendar file which I assume is the current one as it contains no events!?!


There are still all the other .calendar files that I restored and they contain all the events, but how do I get them to appear in iCal?


Yosemite 10.11.5


Please HELP!?!

Sep 19, 2016 3:09 AM in response to Peter Best1

0 down vote Like you I found that the Library Folder referred to is invisible on the desktop. This had kept me baffled and angry for an hour. You can't find it - either on your Boot Volume or on Time Machine - unless you search for "Calendars" with Find File and select the right one. Then, on the desktop you can force Library to reveal itself by selecting "Open enclosing folder". In Time Machine you search for "Calendars" and get a whole heap of items, you just have to keep checking inside each one until you find one that looks something like the old one you've already inspected on the desktop. Time Machine hung repeatedly while I was doing this, which made me even happier! But finally I just restored "Calendars" and it worked. This was on a MacBook Core2Duo 2GHz 3G/500G OS10.7.5

iCal restore from Time Machine backup

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