how to delete all ALERTS in iCal at once?

Yes, that's exactly what I'd like to know. You'd think there had to be some way to delete all of your alerts out of Calendar.

Hi,

You can turn off all alerts for a calendar by selecting it from the calednar list on the left in Calendar, pressing Cmd-i and putting a check by the "Ignore alerts" option.

Alternatively an Applescript to permanently remove all alerts would be not too complex.

Best wishes

John M

Alternatively an Applescript to permanently remove all alerts would be not too complex.

Hi John,

I wonder if you could elaborate on the AppleScript idea. It's been a while since I've done anything in AppleScript, but it sounds like it might do exactly what I'm looking for.

Hi Dale,

Something like below. If you have default alarms set in preferences in iCal (or Calendar.app) then these will be re-added and you should turn them off in the applications preferences if you do not need them. The script will also not affect subscribed calendars or events you can not edit manually.

The effect is permanent and I would strongly suggest you backup your calendars before running the script below.

John M

-- John Maisey -- www.nhoj.co.uk -- 30 Nov 2013 --
-- Removing all alarms from your editable calendars --
-- This process may take some time to run and is permanent. --
tell application "iCal"
  activate
  delay 0.5
   display alert "Removing all alarms from your editable calendars" message "This process may take some time and is permanent. Are you sure you want to do this?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} cancel button 2
      repeat with myCalendar in (calendars whose writable is true)
         repeat with myEvent in events of myCalendar
           delete display alarms of myEvent
           delete mail alarms of myEvent
           delete sound alarms of myEvent
           delete open file alarms of myEvent
          end repeat
       end repeat
  display alert "Removing all alarms from your editable calendars" message "This process is complete." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end tell

Thanks John!

I hope it helps.

Hi John,

Thanks so much for your help with this problem. I am trying to remove alerts for a couple of specific shared calendars (which I can edit) but am having some difficulty due to my inexperience with applescript! I am also not sure where else to go for help solving this problem.

My plan is to run your script a couple of times specifying one calendar at a time by name.

This is the modification I made to your script:

tell application "Calendar"

activate

delay 0.5

display alert "Removing all alarms from your editable calendars" message "This process may take some time and is permanent. Are you sure you want to do this?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} cancel button 2

set calname to "Consultant_on_call"

--- repeat with myCalendar in (calendars whose writable is true)

repeat with myCalendar in (calendars whose name is calname)

repeat with myEvent in events of myCalendar

deletedisplay alarms of myEvent

deletemail alarms of myEvent

deletesound alarms of myEvent

deleteopen file alarms of myEvent

end repeat

end repeat

display alert "Removing all alarms from your editable calendars" message "This process is complete." buttons {"OK"} default button 1

end tell

Are you able to tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks again.

Andrew

An update on this issue - apparently applescript silently fails to delete an alert if it is the 'default' alert.

I'm still trying to figure out if there is a work around.

Another way to do this may be to export the calendar from ical to a .ics file. (Make a duplicate of the .ics as a backup before proceeding to the next step). Open the .ics file in text edit and do a find and replace to change the settings of the events.

You can then delete the original calendar from ical and re-import the modified .ics file.