How can I delete a spam calendar invitation without replying?

I've been a Mac /Apple owner/user for too long - to say. If you know what my avatar is and know what a 512k Mac is - you'll have an idea.

As long as I've been Mac - I'm surprised only seeing this problem just now. I also got the Ray Ban spam. How irritating! We shouldn't have to go to all these different variations to combat what in essence is more than just spam - it's a security issue!

When I started looking up solutions I found what I thought to be a paid solution - "iCal Reply Checker." However, I found it won't work for any cloud /Dave based calendars. I use and have everything synced with iCloud, so it's not an option. And since Apple has been pushing icloud SO MUCH - they really need to address this!

I did a right click to see if I could delete the invite without notifying, but that option still shows notify, as I'm sure it does the same when, as someone suggested clicking on the invite and hitting the delete key. I saw someone also post; logging into iCloud and changing some option ... to have any responses be done by email, then create a filter for the calendar spam. I did the very helpful option; create another calendar, dump the invite into it and then delete without notifying.

I was confused about that last option:

At first, I thought everyone referring to this option was talking about deleting all of iCalendar's critical files. I thought, "oh no, what a hassle - I don't want that."

However, anyone who might be thinking similar - people are actually referring to the separate calendars (i.e., work, holidays, family) You can see those separate calendars in iCal's browser that's able to be shown or hid (on the left in iCal's browser) To create a 'junk' calendar - go to "File" in the menu, or right click on the browser, and select 'new calendar'

I'm sure some of this has been repeated. I'm just jumping on the band wagon, too. I don't have. Maybe someone else can post the link to make suggestions to Apple? I agree! This has been a too LONG of an ongoing issue and Apple really needs to address it.

just my 2¢

@autnagrag -

I'm using 10.11.6 and worked.

Uhmm.... People have discussed a few different things. Exactly "what" didn't work for you?? Creating another calendar topic/item?

After creating another calendar item.... you don't even need to name it. After that .... click and hold the spam invite and drag it onto the new calendar you made. Select that calendar file by either clicking once on it and hit delete, or right click on it and delete.

@autnagrag -

I realize you're trying to provide another option, but in the process - you're also somewhat discrediting a known, working option that's more simple and less time consuming.

What exactly didn't work for you regarding the option of just creating another calendar file? Without supporting details or description of any steps you took - the solution may not be the issue.

Simply put - it could be that you just missed something or did something wrong, and the process could have actually worked all along for you. As I said - I'm running a system on 10.11.6, so it obviously can be done.

I created a new calendar in icloud.com

I then dragged the spammy stuff from my main calendar to that one, disabled auto addition and selected email instead, then choose not to show that calendar on my devices.

It's not great but it seems to work and its not in my main calendar and I dont think I replied, effectively confirming my email address.

Hope that helps.

Sam's__dad wrote:

Despite my post from 2 weeks ago, yesterday I had the Ray Ban ad pop up in my Calendar. I repeated the steps above, and cleared it quickly.

I was puzzled as to why it had still added automatically, and then found one more step I'd missed ...

✅ Go into Mac Mail > Preferences > General > Add invitations to Calendar ... needs to be set to "never"

Hopefully that's the last step ;-)

Unfortunately, these steps to prevent the spam invites won't help anyone who doesn't use Mac's Mail app, and use web based email. I know very few people who use application based mail anymore. Although there are similar steps previously described to do this via logging into your iCloud account on a browser.

https://www.icloud.com

You'll have had to set up your iCloud /Apple user ID (same) and password to log on via the web.

Someone posted these directions earlier:

Log in to iCloud on the web, open your calendar, and go to

⚙ > Preferences. Under Advanced, you’ll find an option to

receive calendar invitations by email instead of straight into your calendar.

Now you can just "Junk" any emails that come in for this and leaves your calendar alone.

This suggestion came from http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/259750

Tay2001 wrote:

I've got 10.11.6 and I don't have the option to decline without notifying either.

Hoping you have a Mac? Do the process via a Mac. It's much easier. There are also MUCH MORE options within the Calendar app, desktop version.

* Have all your calendars (work, personal, whatever) showing in the left side browser of the calendar.

* Right click on a blank spot of the browser; you'll see "Create New Calendar"

* You can leave it "untitled" or "junk"... whatever.

* Find the spam invite (preferably, month view -easy to see)

* Click & hold on spam invite, then drag and drop onto the calendar file you just made.

* Right click on junk calendar file, select "DELETE" **THE NEXT STEP shows the key phrase.

* You'll be presented with three options, one of which says Delete Without Notifying. THAT's IT!

If that's the way you're trying doing the process - you miss the point of creating an extra calendar. You're doing it wrong!

You can't just delete the stupid file because there's no way - UNLESS you delete by means of deleting the junk calendar file.

You're not re-creating an all new calendar. The whole purpose of creating a "junk" calendar file is to delete it (once you drag the spam invite tonit)

The reason you do this is - there's no other way to have the option of - "delete without notifying". You'll only have the option to delete without notifying IF you delete the calendar file. You'll never be presented the option to delete WITHOUT notifying.

Sure you can JUST delete the spam invite.... IF you want to notify the spammer they were successful spamming you.

Why not just take the suggestion someone previously mentioned, confirmed to work by many here??

The reason it is asking you if you want to decline is because you probably didn't select the Calendar itself after moving the spam invite. Be sure to select the Calendar before deleting it. Then it will ask if you want to Notify or to not Notify the sender that you are deleting the Invite along with the Calendar. Of course, you would select Do Not Notify.

Cheers,

GB

I am aware of that. But the first couple of times I went through this process I forgot to select the Calendar I had created, so the event was still selected, and it asked if I wanted to Decline the invite. Sounded to me like the same thing was happening to the poster since they indicated that they had created a new calendar. Not everybody uses the right-click to do things, so again, thought the poster might need a pointer on the selection process.

GB

I

think others may have also mentioned but I know in at least one of my posts I mentioned two methods; right mouse click and also going to the calendar's menu to create a new calendar.

It sounds as though you just may not have read through all the posts?

Sometimes.... "the answer" has to be pierced together among several posts. Sometimes your direct follows up question has actually already been answered in whole.

I made the mistake of jumping the the helpful ones 🙂

Either way, I see the merits of the various options and have resolved my immediate requirement.

Although, as per some of the original comments I'm not sure why in 2016 that this is still a thing..it's great that it can be worked around but there has got to be a better way.

I did not read through all of the posts since I was responding to the person who was having the issue. I had found my answer via Google last week when this started happening to me, so I did not read this thread. But once I had applied the fix (the same one you had outlined minus the right-click, since the instructions I read were for iOS, and I was doing mine on a Mac, and was able to apply the process to the Mac without further help), I ran into the issue I was addressing for the poster.

You will find that many threads have the same reply repeated more than once in a thread. It is not uncommon, and for threads like "Got an error that told me to contact www.apple.com/support/itunes what should I do", the same answer has been repeated over and over almost every other post for over 31 pages..... OMG!

Cheers,

GB

There is no delete key. I only have the option to "accept" "maybe" or "decline". I was told not to do any of those because then the sender gets a notification of how you have replied and then they know it is a working address. Any suggestions?

You might try just selecting the event and pressing the delete key. You would normally get a prompt with the option to delete without notifying: