Did Mountain Lion break calendar and note sync between the Mac and iPhone?

Question

Level 1

44 points

Did Mountain Lion break calendar and note sync between the Mac and iPhone?

When I was running Lion, my calendars and notes synced properly between my Mac and iPhone (with notes going into Mail.app). After upgrading to Mountain Lion, the notes on my Mac were moved into Notes.app and my calendars appeared to be unharmed. I've recently noticed that neither my calendars nor my notes are syncing between my Mac and iPhone.

I use iTunes to sync my data (either via USB or WiFi) and have no interest in moving to iCloud. I have tried the suggestion of enabling iCloud sync on my iPhone, then disabling, as well as telling iTunes to overwrite the calendar data on my iPhone. Neither of these approaches has solved my sync problem.

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 4, 2012 9:20 PM

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Answer 1

user1724

Level 3

535 points

Aug 4, 2012 9:26 PM in response to azrael

On the phone setup in itunes, is the calendar sync option still checked? Turning on icloud will uncheck it, so maybe it needs to be rechecked.

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Answer 2

Ferd II

Level 10

104,245 points

Aug 4, 2012 9:26 PM in response to azrael

azrael,

Notes between devices no longer syncs using iTunes/Mountain Lion.

iCloud/Mountain Lion is the only option to sync notes between devices.

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Answer 3

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 5, 2012 8:57 AM in response to user1724

I've double-checked and the sync option for calendars is still checked. However, events created on each device don't sync to the other.

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Answer 4

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 5, 2012 9:03 AM in response to Ferd II

Looks like an iCloud account is insufficient (I had accidentally migrated my Apple ID to iCloud); activating notes syncing requires a me.com email address.

After setting up the me.com address and activating notes syncing on both my Mac and iPhone, I now have duplicates of all of my notes on both devices. Worse than that, they're not complete duplicates - the data copied to iCloud is at least a week old.

My experience with iCloud has been very poor. I'm surprised that Apple released this, much less made it a requirement. I'm disappointed.

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Answer 5

Aug 5, 2012 12:58 PM in response to azrael

Only the iCloud account will sync. Check your Notes apps on all your devices for other "On My Mac" or "On My iPhone" accounts. If you have notes in these accounts copy them into the iCloud account and delte the extra accounts if you don't intend on using them. Depending on where all your notes are your best bet is to start on the computer to get it organized and it will sync to iCloud and the iPhone. Any notes trapped in an "On the iPhone" account will probably have to be emailed to your computer to get transferred to the proper account. Once you get everything into the iCloud account it should work seamlessly. If you will be using multiple accounts on the iPhone set the default account in Settings/Notes to your preference, probably to iCloud.

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Answer 6

DJMOBILE

Level 1

0 points

Aug 17, 2012 7:21 AM in response to azrael

Hi Spark did you ever find a way to sync your iphone notes to your mac with out using icloud let me know thanks?

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Answer 7

DJMOBILE

Level 1

0 points

Aug 17, 2012 7:24 AM in response to azrael

Hi azrael did you ever find a way to sync your iphone notes to your mac with out using icloud let me know thanks?

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Answer 8

Aug 17, 2012 5:29 PM in response to DJMOBILE

I don't believe there is a way, I have read Apple removed this opting for iCloud syncing. I haven't tried to find a way since I prefer syncing my data through iCloud. It is more convenient for me since I don't always have my computer with me, everything can sync to my iPad without the aid of the computer.

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Answer 9

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 18, 2012 3:41 PM in response to DJMOBILE

Based on everything that I've read, I have to agree with Stephen and conclude that iCloud is the only way to sync notes. I don't like it, but I'm resigned to it, so I setup iCloud syncing for my notes and it seems to be working OK (once I cleaned up the mess created by enabling iCloud syncing).

I'm still looking for a solution to the Calendar sync problem. I've seen that the latest beta of 10.8.1 is supposed to address something with Calendar, so I'm hoping it solves my sync problems.

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Answer 10

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 25, 2012 5:45 PM in response to azrael

10.8.1 has been released and my calendar sync woes continue. C'mon 10.8.2…

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Answer 11

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 27, 2012 10:02 PM in response to azrael

New data point: on a whim, I synced my PIM data to my iPod Touch running iOS 5 (I use it for dev, so it had never had data synced to it). None of the calendar items that were created after installing Mountain Lion synced to my iPod.

Did Mountain Lion also force the use of iCloud for syncing Calendar data like it did for Notes? I would find that very disappointing…

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Answer 12

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 28, 2012 9:26 PM in response to azrael

I found a solution to my problem. Hopefully it helps someone else too.

I deleted the following file and folder:

~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache

~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Sync Changes/

When I synced my iPhone, I was presented with several sync conflicts to resolve. I resolved them and applied the changes immediately. Now my Mac and iPhone are in sync and I've confirmed that changes are syncing from my Mac to my iPhone (I'll confirm that it works the other direction tomorrow when I can look at my calendar at work).

This is the thread that helped me:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4164930

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Answer 13

Sep 2, 2012 4:03 PM in response to azrael

I agree with you. Apple needs to bring back the ability to sync via a USB cable.

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