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Recover deleted iCal calendar with Time Machine

Don't ask. Let it suffice to say I accidently deleted my main iCal calendar (as opposed to things like my wife's social calendar, sports teams' calendars, etc.). This is a MAJOR problem. On the other hand I have my laptop backed up onto a Time Machine. My problem is that I don't quite know how to recall my calendar. It isn't quite like pulling up a simple spreadsheet or other document it seems. Any help? Thanks

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), 17 inch, Early 2011

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 3:18 PM

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3 replies

Jul 6, 2015 5:32 PM in response to Mark Kaintz

If you synchronize any of your calendars with a server such as iCloud, disable that synchronization. Quit Calendar.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Calendars

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder selected. Enter Time Machine and restore that folder from the snapshot you want.

Relaunch Calendar and test. Your calendars should be as they were when the snapshot was taken. If you don't sync with a server, stop here.

If you do sync some of the calendars with a server, select each one in turn and then select

File ▹ Export ▹ Export…

from the menu bar. You'll get ICS files with the filename extension ".ics".

Re-enable sync. Usually, all the calendars you just restored will be deleted. That's not a problem.

Create a new calendar on the server for each one you exported and want to sync:

File ▹ New Calendar

Then import the calendar from the corresponding ICS file by double-clicking it. Follow the prompts to import the new events to the calendar you just created.

For calendars that you don't want to sync, just import them again. They'll appear in the calendar list under On My Mac.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Jul 7, 2015 3:37 PM in response to Linc Davis

Well, after about an hour of wrestling with this I feel stymied. I looked at the instructions and followed them assuming my data was still on the iCloud. Evidently it was not. So, I used the same process with Time Machine. This incident happened on July 5th. So I went to July 4th. I used the recover command in Time Machine, but now even less information was in my calendar. So I went back a couple more days. Same result. I'm lost. I can possibly go back to e-mails and rebuild my calendar manually, but that will be tedious and grossly inefficient. Unfortunately it may be necessary. I'm hoping that there is another way.

Recover deleted iCal calendar with Time Machine

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