Calendar, iCal, iCloud & Security, Privacy & Access on a Mac

With the introduction of 10.8, it seems no longer possible to have calendars locally on your Mac and on iCloud as turning on iCloud forces you to migrate all your local calendars to iCloud. But then why would you care? Here's why:

- What if your internet connection goes down and you want to check appointments or change them?

- What if you are in an area without internet access?

- What if Apple's servers malfunction, as they have lately for Mail, limiting access to your iCloud information?

- What if Apple's servers get hacked - i.e. privacy concernes?

- Privacy concernes in general.

However there is a way around this issue that allows you to keep both local and iCloud calendars in Calendar. Here is how you do it:

- Export any calendars you wish to be kept on your mac (as opposed to iCloud) using the "Export" command in Calendar. Note where you save them.

- Delete these calendars. It doesn't matter if iCloud is activated or not in iCloud System Preferences.

- If iCloud is not checked in iCloud System Preferences, check it. iCloud will merge, if it has not already, all remaining calenders into iCloud. No local calendars will remain.

- If this process recreates calendars that you have exported, delete them.

- Open Calendar preferences and choose 'Accounts'

- Select Account Information, the "iCloud/caldav" account if not selected, and uncheck the box "Enable this account".

- Close Calendar preferences. Your iCloud calendars will disappear.

- In Calendar create and name a new calendar. This will now be a local calendar on your Mac.

- In Calendar use the "Import File" command to import the desired exported calender into the new calendar

- Repeat the last two steps for each calendar you want locally on your Mac.

- When you are finished, open Calendar Preferences and recheck the box "Enable this account"

Your iCloud calendars will reappear and your local calendars will remain.

To move an event from one calendar to another - i.e. from local to iCloud or back, simply right-click on the event and choose the calendar.

Do not forget to set you default calendars:

This can be done for local calendars in Calendar Preferences.

For iCloud on the Web it depends on calendar order. The top one is the default calendar.

Note that if you set of local calendars on your Mac, when you are on the web, iCloud Calendars will know nothing about them.

Personally I keep all events local except those I wish to share on my internal network or ones I wll need when I travel and will not have my computer with me. That way my privacy in regards to Calendar is better protected and I can gain access to my events from my own computer, even my connection shuts down for whatever reason.