iCal restore from Time Machine backup

I got everything up and running again. Most of the directions on how to restore files from Time Machine to iCal don't tell you all the steps because between Lion and Mountain Lion, Apple changed where the "Calendars" folder is found. It is hidden in Moutain Lion and can only be found through the "Go" Menu. Hold down the ALT key (Option key) while looking at the Go Menu and a new Library folder (that will contain all the hidden folders) should appear. Note: if you go to the Library through clicking on Machintosh HD > Library, you won't see it.

From there it was easy, just hook up my external backup drive a.k.a. Time Machine, and while looking at the hidden library folder, just click on the Time Machine application and I could see my backup of the folder. I just went back one day, highlighted the "Calendars" folder and clicked "Restore" at the bottom right. Then I restarted iCal and it updated for a minute, and "boom" crisis averted.

For those unable to "Go Offline" - this is what worked for me. Easier for me to understand than any other instructions. Be sure to read through all the instructions before proceeding:

https://www.gcsdstaff.org/roodhouse/?p=3289&cpage=1#comment-469414

Restore iCal Calendars from Time Machine Backup in OS X 10.8 or 10.9

Time Machine is a great backup tool and usually works pretty flawlessly. One area that could be improved is in recovering iCal Calendars. To recover your iCal Calendars from a specific time you have to jump through a few hoops and do a few steps that may not seem very intuitive. Here is how:

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!

Madison, and Others...

Thanks for the guide... By being a little careless, I had ended up importing my daughters extensive Calendar (1,000's of events, for herself, two children, and a husband) from her HotMail account over the top of my personal Calendar. I was able to recover my self, following your guide.

However: there is are a few more key steps needed for those using iCloud to sync multiple iThingies.

I have added these steps to your guide [and updated iCal to Calendar] as follows...

Key steps for those synced to iCloud. Recognise that iCloud is the master, and will keep all devices synced.

So if you mess up Calendar on one device, it will be messed up on all.

Restoring Calendar from Time Machine [when Calendar syned with iCloud],

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 Calendar on iMac, and identify the offending Calendar [Robert], or Calendars, and quit Calendar.
2. Go to https://www.icloud.com/#calendar, select the Calendar [Robert], and delete it.
   It will be deleted from all iPhone, iPod, iPad devices. Log off and quit from iCloud.
3. Physically disconnect the Mac from Internet [I removed Ethernet cable from the ADSL Router]
4. Restore Calendars folder from Time Machine from ~Library, Calendars from an appropriate point in time.
   Be aware that any data added after that point in time will be lost.
5. Open Calendar, and highlight each calendar one at a time on the left hand side and
   select File, Export, Export and save the resulting calendar .ics file to the desktop.
6. Reconnect the iMac to Internet [plug Ethernet cable back into the ADSL Router]
7. iCloud will delete the restored Calendar(s) [since it is the master].
   Re-import them from the Calendar .ics files on the desktop.

Hope this clarifies the situation, for Others...

And I hope Apple makes this a bit easier in furture.

For example, Contacts .vcf files [groups of contacts] can be imported directly into iCloud Contacts,

But Calendar .ics files cannot, so moving over from HotMail to iCloud is just that bit more awkward.

Robert

Heres a way i figured out if you only want to restore only a single item from your calendar. Hope it works fine.

With icloud

1. Open terminal

2. chflags nohidden ~/Library/

3. Disable icloud syncing for the calendar in the settings

4. Delete from mac? Yes

5. Disable connection from internet

6. Open "Library" in finder in your "Username" directory on HDD

7. Now open time machine (folder should open)

8. Select useful time for recovery

9. Restore the "Calendar" folder

10. Replace files? Yes!

11. Open ical and save the needed Calender item on HDD (on x)

12. Connect to Internet

13. Open Calender

14. Add the saved and needed file from your HDD (from x)

Without icloud

1. Open terminal

2. chflags nohidden ~/Library/

3. Open ical and export all calenders onto your HDD

6. Open "Library" in finder in your "Username" directory on HDD

7. Now open time machine (folder should open)

8. Select useful time for recovery

9. Restore the "Calendar" folder

10. Replace files? Yes!

11. Open ical and save the needed Calender item on HDD (on x)

12. Reimport your calender from point. 3.

14. Add the saved and needed file from your HDD (from x)

Greetings

Fkuhn

Thank you so much! After wading through a whole bunch of stuff, this was the thing that finally got me to restoring my calendar. (Stupid iCloud, grumble, grumble, was just trying to turn it off cause it was interrupting everything and then lost my whole calendar, grumble, grumble.)

ANYWAY - it still took me a while, even with this completely accurate, helpful advice -

so I thought I'd add:

The thing that I couldn't work out for a while was that I needed to (once I got the Library in my Finder through the ALT/Option key)

Open Time Machine

Then open the Library/Calendar in Time Machine in the Finder for the Current moment (i.e. the one that now has the Library choice)

and THEN go back in time to the version before the iCloud destruction.

Then once everything was back, I printed my calendar. Just for quadruple surety.

Helen, you have probably got your self sorted out by now, but just in case you have not...

To access your Calendar files in OS X...

a) Open Finder, then, from the Top Menu Bar, while holding down the Option Key, select Go, Library

b) open Time Machine, it will find and display archived version of the entire Library, select the Calendars folder...

c) Move backwards to a time when you are confident your Calendars were OK [before you lost all of your Calendars],

d) when you are ready [refering and following steps 01 to 07 below], select Calendars, and Restore from Time Machine.

Note: For simplicity, in Apple technical terms, the file path name "Hard Drive, Users, Your User Name" is abreviated to a single ~ character.

Robert.

Restoring Calendar from Time Machine [when Calendar synced with iCloud],

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 Calendar on iMac, and identify the offending Calendar [Robert], or Calendars, and quit Calendar.
2. Go to https://www.icloud.com/#calendar, select the Calendar [Robert], and delete it.
   It will be deleted from all iPhone, iPod, iPad devices. Log off and quit from iCloud.
3. Physically disconnect the Mac from Internet [I removed Ethernet cable from the ADSL Router]
4. Restore Calendars folder from Time Machine from ~Library, Calendars from an appropriate point in time.
   Be aware that any data added after that point in time will be lost.
5. Open Calendar, and highlight each calendar one at a time on the left hand side and
   select File, Export, Export and save the resulting calendar .ics file to the desktop.
6. Reconnect the iMac to Internet [plug Ethernet cable back into the ADSL Router]
7. iCloud will delete the restored Calendar(s) [since it is the master].
   Re-import them from the Calendar .ics files on the desktop.

Helen, I hope this helps you sort out your situation...

This worked wonderfully for me as well. Thanks!

I also added a step or two to retrieve just ONE calendar from months ago without losing any data:

I backed up ical and also saved a copy of the mlost recent 'calendars' folder before restoring the entire old 'calendars' folder from the Time Machine backup. After restoring the old 'calendars' folder and opening ical I exported the single calendar I needed using iCal and then quit again and restored the newest 'calendars' folder. Opened ical and imported the old single calendar I had exported to the desktop.

Hopefully that might help someone.

Yes. I did this just today. I 'unhid' the Library folder (within user folder) by doing the Terminal command as mentioned previously. Then I went to my Library folder (Users>'myname'>Library) and then "entered" Time Machine. I was then able to go back to the date and restore the entire 'calendars' folder. Then upon re-opening iCal all calendars were restored as they were on the date I chose.

Time Machione took a little while to reveal the folder (probably because it was via time capsule - wireless)

BTW- I believe the 'go ofline' only refers to calendars you have on 'iCloud' etc. I also turned my wifi off when ICal was turned on just to be safe...

Hope this helps.

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

Check out Daniel Ebeck's solution, helped me a lot

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3441407?start=0&tstart=0

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Here are comments from my experience with this fiasco.

when you make lib visible, you'll find the settings folder for iCal. inside that you'll see however many different calendars you have ONE folder per each. They are titled something like 002A-HS29-F137-0201 You get the idea. ANYWAH what you may consider is create however many calendars you have so they are seperated.

Open the first folder select all, drag and drop into iCal calendar 1. then drag and drop second folder contents into calendar 2 and so on...

You don't have to remind me how much of a pain it was! I regret dumping them into only ONE calendar.

Sidenote: My iphone/ipodTouch/Apple online STILL have all of my old calendar "sections" that were wiped from my calendar. Have not addressed that yet but will have to shortly.

--Travis

For those of you who don't want to mess with Terminal, here's a simple trick that will allow you to look into your Home/Library folder without permanently "revealing" it via Terminal.

1. Hold down your "Option" key while clicking on your "Go" menu item. As mentioned in other posts, this will temporarily expose your Library folder in the drop-down menu. Slide down to select "Library".

2. This move should open up a Finder window with the contents of your Library folder in view.

3. Now drag and drop your "Library" folder over onto the left Sidebar of your open Finder window. You'll have to drop it somewhere within the "Favorites" llst.

This move should create a shortcut to your invisible Library folder. If you'd like to remove the shortcut to your Library folder from your Sidebar, simply Control-click the shortcut, and then choose "Remove from Sidebar".

Grampa Doodie.

You need to read the previous posts. 'Library' is hidden by default. To 'unhide' open Terminal (in your utilities folder) then enter the following command:

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

You then open Time Machine (the program NOT the folder/drive) and just follow the steps mentioned previously in this thread.

Hope that helps.

For the many, many people with this problem I want to repeat my advice that this solution : http://chasingaftermoonbeams.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/restoring-lost-ical-events-a nd.html

has worked for me where dozens of others didn't. It's as if the deletion of everything gets rid of things that otherwise cause trouble. I don't think this course of action is any more complicated or difficult than any other, but its comprehensiveness seems to get rid of all the rubbish that's sending the system crazy.

I've posted this before.