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How to disable notifications for shared calendars?

My girlfriend and I are sharing calendars. Every time she adds an activity, Calendar on OS X Mountain Lion notifies me via notification center AND from within the app. I disabled this when subscribing to her calendars on Lion and iOS 5, but it's enabled for Mountain Lion by default.


How can I disable both?

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion, Late 2010

Posted on Aug 11, 2012 11:07 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 4, 2016 11:53 AM

I have always had the same issues for many, many years but I recently found one additional setting to turn off shared notifications, so to summarize:


1. In Mac Calendar --> Preferences --> Alerts, uncheck Show shared calendar messages in Notification Center

2. In Mac Calendar, right click on each shared calendar in the Calendar List and check Ignore Alerts in each

3. In iOS, Settings -->Notifications --> Calendar, tap on Shared Calendar Changes and uncheck all of the options to show in Notification Center, lock screen, etc.

4. In iOS, Calendar app, tap on Calendars to show a list of all of your iCloud and shared calendars, then tap the info ("i" in the red circle) on each shared calendar and then turn Show Changes to off.


Be sure to do this on each of your Macs and iOS devices (for me, home and work iMac, iPad, iPhone, MacBook), as my changes as described above did not synchronize across all of my machines/devices.


I "think" doing all of these steps has resolved the problem for my wife and me. The fact that all of these steps are necessary is ridiculous.

26 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 4, 2016 11:53 AM in response to Skatenski

I have always had the same issues for many, many years but I recently found one additional setting to turn off shared notifications, so to summarize:


1. In Mac Calendar --> Preferences --> Alerts, uncheck Show shared calendar messages in Notification Center

2. In Mac Calendar, right click on each shared calendar in the Calendar List and check Ignore Alerts in each

3. In iOS, Settings -->Notifications --> Calendar, tap on Shared Calendar Changes and uncheck all of the options to show in Notification Center, lock screen, etc.

4. In iOS, Calendar app, tap on Calendars to show a list of all of your iCloud and shared calendars, then tap the info ("i" in the red circle) on each shared calendar and then turn Show Changes to off.


Be sure to do this on each of your Macs and iOS devices (for me, home and work iMac, iPad, iPhone, MacBook), as my changes as described above did not synchronize across all of my machines/devices.


I "think" doing all of these steps has resolved the problem for my wife and me. The fact that all of these steps are necessary is ridiculous.

Oct 11, 2012 1:10 PM in response to Nijntje

OK, I have successfully stopped my wife's shared appointments from triggering alarms in my Notification Center!


Go to Calendar (desktop machine), and right-click on a shared alarm in the left sidebar. Choose "Get Info" from the popup menu, and then click the check box next to "Ignore Alerts".


If you have more than one shared alarm, you must do this for every one of them.


For my iPhone and iPad, I was able to disable the alerts from the Settings app: Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Shared Calendar Alerts (turn slider off - it's the last item on that settings page). Too bad this operation isn't consistent between desktop computers and mobile devices - I thought that was what Apple's been trying to do since Lion!

Oct 18, 2012 3:47 AM in response to DavidSLynch

Thanks David, I too had been trying only the "Turn off shared calandar messages in Notification center" in Preferences on my Macbook Pro, but continued to receive shared notifications. Then I used your suggestion above to "Get Info"and click "Ignore Alerts" on each shared calendar. Funny thing, when I went back to preferences, it had unchecked the "Turn off shared calandar messages in Notification center", so I had to recheck this option. Now both are sticking and it seems to have stopped the unwanted shared notices. Thanks for your post!


Others, if you are still having trouble, double check your MBP preferences as you may need to re-check this option.


Thanks

Tim

Jan 31, 2013 2:31 PM in response to Nijntje

Does anyone know if Apple have been officially advised of this bug, especially on the iPhone? Because there have been 2 updates to IOS 6 and nothing has been fixed yet. My wife and I had only just discovered the whole calendar Sharing and Invitation things on our iPhones for IOS 5 and it was great. But now since IOS 6 it's hopeless. I would have thought it would have been fixed by now?

Apr 18, 2013 6:43 AM in response to Nijntje

Hi folks, I like the way google handles viewing/sharing calendars way better, but I have been able to find a pretty decent solution: I subscribed to the calendar instead of "join" the calendar. I had the person send me their calendar's public subscription url instead of "inviting" me to the calendar. Then, I am able to remove alerts, and, if de-selected, it doesn't show up in the notification center on my mac or on the iphone/ipod.


The cons: I can't add events to the calendar, but I was willing to give that up so I could enable/disable alerts and notifications.

Jan 16, 2015 3:50 PM in response to Nijntje

and now, 2.5'ish years later... STILL the same bug/problem!!!


hoping to resurrect this discussion. now on Yosemite 10.10.1, i STILL get the in-app notifications of any change to shared calendars.


and, like BrassHornet said above, & to specify even further...

1) the iOS notification issue with this seems to have been resolved (for me) via the version 8 settings.

2) the Mac system-wide notifications with this seems to also have been resolved (for me) via settings in system prefs > notifications.


3) but the Calendar.app toolbar notifications is STILL getting populated with each & every change to the shared calendar (my wifes). drives me crazy. i don't need to be notified of the hundreds of "she created this", "she edited that", "she moved this", "she deleted that" and all the various mistakes & fixes she'll make too (ugh).


and yes, i too have the "turn off shared calendar messages in notification center" option checked in calendar > preferences > alerts,

AND i have the "ignore alerts" option checked in the shared cal > get info panel.


so... who's next?!

Jun 20, 2015 12:41 PM in response to Nijntje

Think I may have found the issue with the alerts appearing INSIDE the calendar app on OSX (Yosemite) at least.


I had to make sure the email address that was originally used to subscribe to the additonal calendars is still linked to an Icloud account.


I beleieve the 'Ignore Alerts' function requires a link to icloud to be able to save the setting.


The original address used to share the additional calendars can be found by right clicking on the calendar name (e.g. 'My fiends's Calendar') and seletign 'Sharing Settings'. Your email should show in the list of people the calendar is shared with. If this email address is not your current iCloud one, update it and you should stop getting alerts...


cheers,

Matt

Dec 14, 2015 11:35 AM in response to Nijntje

Now seriously. I’ve been looking for a solution cause I thought I might find something, but all i found are questions…


This bug exists now for over three years, right? ******* three years, Apple!

I don’t buy an apple device to get broken software - I expect things to "just work". So get your lazy *** up and fix things that others might have fixed years ago…


Quality… a foreign word in the house of Apple.

How to disable notifications for shared calendars?

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