Calendars were duplicated - how to restore

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Level 4

1,395 points

Calendars were duplicated - how to restore

Too many items were duplicated on my calendar from the Mac to the two iPhones 4S and iPad. Also items were not being updated as I input in the Mac and expected it to update on the devices via iCloud. Finally I cleared from the iCloud site of all items on my calendar. Now I need to restore my calendar from the Mac to the blank iCloud page. This whole thing needs to be simplified... Hopefully I can get this to work as I hope it was intended by the designers.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), quadcore 2.7ghz 16GB and 17" MB Pro

Posted on Nov 13, 2012 8:34 AM

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Answer 1

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Nov 13, 2012 11:05 AM in response to Harold Coates

See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4967.

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Answer 2

Harold Coates Author

Level 4

1,395 points

Nov 13, 2012 2:42 PM in response to randers4

Thanks for your input.

The link you gave me says go to sys. prefs. and click on iCloud. I don't have iCloud listed but there is the Mobile Me pref. but I never signed up for it. Apple just has not made a simple path to resolve this problem. I suppose I will have to do without my calendars on the iPhones and iPad.

Thanks for your suggestion,

Harold

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Answer 3

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Nov 13, 2012 2:53 PM in response to Harold Coates

Sorry, thought you were syncing your Mac iCal with iCloud. Is your calendar on icloud.com empty right now? Also, are the calendars on your iPhone and iPad also empty right now?

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Answer 4

Harold Coates Author

Level 4

1,395 points

Nov 13, 2012 3:12 PM in response to randers4

The calendar on my iMac is loaded and it loaded up iCloud initially and loaded up both iPhones and the iPad.

Only problem was it duplicated many items three or four times which was irritating and not to useful. It also would not update the devices as I input new items on the iMac calendar. Finally, I chose to clear the iCloud calendar from the iCloud website. After that I could not reload from the iMac. The phones still have the items on their respective calendars.

From the iCloud website my contacts work beautifully. When I change or input a new contact it does it instantly either way from the iCloud site or from the device. The sharing between the site and devices work well and I expected the same with the calendars.

Harold

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Answer 5

Harold Coates Author

Level 4

1,395 points

Nov 13, 2012 3:15 PM in response to Harold Coates

Also note that I still use 10.6.8 not Lion. I can't upgrade because I have thousands of AppleWork documents and there is no way to transfer to Word or Pages. I also have many data base docs that will not transfer or run on LIon. I am stuck with Snow Leapard

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Answer 6

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Nov 13, 2012 3:30 PM in response to Harold Coates

Ok. The issue is that you are not syncing your Mac with your iCloud account (because you aren't running OS X 10.7.4 or higher), but it sounds like you are syncing your iPhone and iPad calendars with both iCloud and iTunes. When you sync the data with both iCloud and iTunes you end up with duplicates.

If you can't update your Mac you'll have to go to Settings>iCloud on your iPhone and iPad and turn Calendars to Off. When prompted, choose not to keep the data on your device (this will erase the calendar, which is fine because you will be syncing it back from your Mac using iTunes).

You mentioned that your Mac calendar was no longer syncing with your devices using iTunes, even though (I assume) you have selected to do so on the Info tab of your iTunes sync settings. To fix this, do the following:

First back up your Mac calendar by opening iCal and going to File>Export>Calendar Archive. Save this file on your desktop in case anything goes wrong.
Reset the SyncServices folder on your Mac as explained in this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1627.
Connect your iPhone to your Mac, check that you have selected to sync your calendar with iCal on the Info tab of your sync settings, then sync. If you get a Merge or Replace prompt for calendars, choose Merge.
Confirm that your calendar is now on your iPhone. If so, repeat step 3 with your iPad.

If you are syncing your contacts with both iCloud and iTunes you will get the same problem: duplicate contacts. If so, do the same thing for your contacts (although you shouldn't need to reset the SyncServices folder again).

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