El Capitan Macbook Pro - iCloud - Duplicate Calendars & Reminders

This happened to me. I only have one extra set on my iMac. Regardless it's annoying. What gives?

It has happened to me too. I have 9 duplicates across 5 calendars. And every calendar reminder pop-up comes in 9 copies, as well. I have found no solution.

Try this:

Re: Reminders and Calendar are not syncing with iCloud on our Mac Pro after upgrade to El Capitan

I, too, am having this exact problem (multiple duplicate calendars). I have tried the fix recommended in the link, following it exactly, and it did not solve my issues.

After adding my iCloud account back to my Internet Accounts the problem started back up again.

In the process I also lost all of my REMINDERS items: they disappeared from my computer and they disappeared from my online iCloud account, so users beware.

Worth noting: I am having no issues with CONTACTS. It is only manifesting in REMINDERS and CALENDARS.

As I'm sure many of you do, I depend very heavily on my calendar and am eager to find a solution that will clear this issue up.

Hello jhcovert,

Try to keep calm. As long as your "Calendars", "Reminders" and "Contacts" are clean and right on the Cloud, it will just be your Mac that's confused. Hopefully it's just following instructions that you don't know are in there to store extra sets of these things. Those instructions will be in your computer somewhere, so we just need to find out where they are, and change them.

As ever, first it is essential to go online and double-check that your "Calendars", "Reminders" and "Contacts" in your online iCloud account are all present and correct!!!

Are they?? If they are, excellent. We can carry on. If they aren't, stop now and let me know.

If they're all good, I'm assuming you have other devices like maybe an iPhone and/or iPad, or more than one of each. If you do, would you mind checking some things for me in your iTunes app on your Mac for each device? Don't change anything just yet, just let me know what you find, OK? Would suggest making notes for each. So,

1. Open iTunes

2. Look for your iPhone/iPad's icon at the end of the second row in the top left corner of the window.

NB: If no devices are showing, plug each one in in turn.

3. Click on one of your devices and look under the "Settings" list going down the left hand side of the window.

4. First go to the "Summary" page at the top of the list then check these two sections:

A. In the "Backups" section:

a. Under "Automatically Back Up", is "iCloud" switched on or off?

b. In that same section, is "This computer" switched on or off?

B. Next, in the "Options" section:

a. Is "Sync with this iPad/iPhone over Wi-Fi" on or off?

5. Secondly, look back at the "Settings" list going down the left of the window and click on the "info" page at the bottom:

a. Is the check box for "Sync Contacts" switched on or off?

b. Is the check box for "Sync Calendars" switched on of off?

Remember you need to check these things for each of your devices, then let me know what they are. Hopefully the culprit is hiding there in plain sight!

And please forgive me if you're great at Macs and I'm talking to you like you're an idiot. Don't mean to insult you, just trying to be as thorough as possible in case you, or someone else who is a Mac Newbie has not had this problem before (like I have!) Let's just hope the glitch lives here because if it does, it's super-easy to fix...

Andy (o:

Andy, thanks for the thorough response. I always prefer detail.

So, I checked the iTunes settings as you suggested and they are as follows...

iPhone > backup to iCloud ON > This Computer OFF > Wifi Sync ON > Contacts & Calendars iCLOUD (no option to toggle, says control on device)

iPad > backup to iCloud OFF > This Computer ON > Wifi Sync ON > Contacts & Calendars iCLOUD (no option to toggle, says control on device)

While all was right on iCloud, and correct on my phone and laptop, it was still not right on my desktop, with 5 duplicates of all of my calendars.

I experimented by exporting all calendars from my correctly set-up laptop and then deleting all of them from iCloud! A drastic measure to be sure, but I needed to see how this thing works. I first confirmed that all but the one calendar you must have was removed from all machines and iCloud. Then I imported a small calendar into iCloud. And at first it looked like it was working properly! Hooray... it showed only one calendar on my desktop and all other machines. I figured, I've got this - I'll delete the last offending calendar and just re-import from the laptop.

But then... before I could do that, seemingly out of the blue... the new calendar that had been confirmed as previously deleted from all machines began to duplicate itself, BUT ONLY ON MY DESKTOP!!! So, I'm back to square one. Surely, whatever is happening is occurring on the desktop and no where else. How to remove these duplicates is the mystery.

I'm nearly certain that this is all caused by the fact that after the El Capitan install I was having an enormous amount of iCloud based problems, particularly with iMessage (as reported by many others). In order to clear this up I had to clear the NVRAM and sign in and out of iCloud and remove and add it to my machine twice. I suspect the the information was duplicated in these processes. Clearing it up, however, is proving very difficult.

Oh Lordy... I do admire your sense of adventure but DO wish you'd told me what you'd found BEFORE you got drastic! (0;

Now that I know what your iTunes settings are, methinks the problem is hiding in plain sight and very easy to fix. Will explain:

Your iPhone is backing up to the Cloud and syncing by wifi so will put it's set of calendars, contact, reminders, etc on your Mac via the Cloud. If you only used your iPhone to sync, you would have perfect sets on your phone, Mac and Cloud.

Your iPad, on the other hand, has been told to back up to 'This computer' so is putting it's set of calendars, contacts, reminders, etc directly on your Mac, so duplicating the set that your iPhone is supplying via the Cloud. You need for them BOTH to back up via the Cloud so the Mac, the phone, the iPad and the Cloud can all sing off the same hymn sheet with one set of data!

The good news is that this is a nice, tidy, easy to fix, local computer problem, and if you're going to have a problem with your Contacts, Calendars, etc, that's the type to have! So, what to do:

As ever, go online and double-check your iCloud data and make sure it's clean and tidy and as you want it. If it isn't, get in touch before you get drastic. Please!

The solution:

1. Plug your iPad into your Mac

2. Open iTunes

3. Go to iPad 'Settings'

4. In 'Backups', change that setting to 'Automatically Back Up with... iCloud'.

5. Leave 'Sync with this iPad over Wi-Fi'

6. Back out of iTunes and close it down.

7. Go to 'Settings' on your iPad

8. Go to 'iCloud'

9. Make sure all the app buttons you want on are on for syncing.

10. Back out of Settings.

11. Duplicates still there? Probably, because it's still storing your iPad's sets because it hasn't been told not to yet.

14. Delete your iCloud account as I described in my original post one more time.

Should be clean and tidy now with one set of data for each app.

Let me know if this helps!

Andy

Sigh... your advice has helped, however, the problem has not been fixed.

What happened...

1. I followed you advice perfectly, changing settings in iTunes and on my iDevices accordingly, deleting my iCloud account from my desktop, ensuring all windows and apps were closed, and rebooted.

2. Added my iCloud account back into my desktop computer.

3. Rebooted one last time before opening the affected apps, just to be sure. In the interim I confirmed that everything was working perfectly on all other devices (iPhone, iPad, Laptop, running iOS 9.0.2 and 10.11 El Capitan, respectively - all up to date).

4. Upon opening the apps on my desktop, I now have 3 iterations of CALENDARS instead of 6. Same goes for REMINDERS. CONTACTS are fine (though there were some duplicates, but easily taken care of by way of the function of merging in the app). No duplicates in PHOTOS or NOTES. All other devices have the correct information displayed.

So, as you can see, headway has been made, but it's still not quite right, and I'm left scratching my head as to where those last 2 extra iterations of my iCloud data is being stored on my desktop. Clearly, as your iTunes sleuthing determined, extra sets of data are lurking somewhere hereabouts!

Interestingly, what I have found is that if I delete even one of the "extra" iterations, it deletes the entire calendar from iCloud for all devices connected. The desktop is treating each of the duplicate calendars as though it were the same single calendar. Could this be a cache issue? Does Apple have a secret method of effectively purging all iCloud data from a given machine (without having to clean install the OS again, of course)?

I truly appreciate all of the time you've spent helping me up to this point: 3 is better than 6, which is kind of what Meatloaf had to say at one point or another.

One other thing I've tried, to no avail, is deleting all back-ups of my iDevices from within iTunes.

I had thought that iCloud might be erroneously drawing data from those files, but after deleting, quitting and rebooting, the problem persists.

Back to the drawing board...

Hey, you're welcome. I've just been using Macs for 20 years now and don't call The Highest-of-High Apple Screamers Department unless I really can NOT figure it out myself, and sure enough, they've never seen anything like it either! Ha! So relatively good on most stuff, and fix lots of people's Apple stuff - but always easier when you can sit with the machine that's sick!

So, had a thought which should make you feel better. You had two devices - your phone and your iPad - giving 6 sets. Now you have two devices giving 3 which means that this is all the same set, but triplicated. Could you just check online that your Calendars and Reminders are still happy in the Cloud for me? In the meantime, I'll do some research....

Andy (o;

Quick question: When you have the Calendar app open on your Mac, what's group headings have you got in the list on the left? Because I sync them all through the Cloud, I only have "Facebook", "iCloud" and "Other". What have you got? If you have an "On my Mac" heading, we can turn that off and at least some of the imposters will disappear!

I thought I sent this earlier but it doesn't appear to have posted so apologies if I'm repeating myself, but try this:

1. Open Calendars

2. Click on "View" at the top

3. Scroll down and click on "Refresh Calendars"

If that doesn't help, I have another idea but do try that first!

Andy

Andy,

All online CALENDARs (and all other online app's data) is working just as expected. Also the same on all machines too.

I am only using iCloud for my calendars and at this point for everything else as well.

I have been refreshing the calendars often since the beginning of this fiasco.

Jason