Restoring Lion/iCloud iCal from Time Machine

Question

Well I managed to delete my calendar, which was being synched via iCloud with my Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Can I repopulate my iCal calendar from a Time Machine backup? ~/Library/ contains a folder called Calendars, but its contents look complicated and I don't dare simply restore the Calendars folder from yesterday's Time Machine backup.

Thanks.

Answer 1

From what I can tell, Time Machine doesn't allow you to restore iCal calendars through the iCal app. And actually, you should be able to restore that calendars folder.

While the directory contents are complicated, iCal should translate them back to what you had before. The only other thing I would bring over just to be on the safe side is your iCal's list file, located in ~/Library/Preferences. It should be called com.apple.iCal.plist. I would recommend moving this from your Time Machine backup to the same directory on your Mac.

That should do it for you.

Answer 2

This worked for me but I had to clean things up before it actually did work :

rm -fr ~/Library/Calendars
rm -fr ~/Library/Preferences/*iCal*
cp -fr $TimeMachineHome$/Library/Calendars ~/Library/Calendars
cp -fr $TimeMachineHome$/Library/Preferences/*iCal* ~/Library/Preferences

Answer 3

I found another solution using Time Machine. You will have to look deep inside that Calendars folder though. This was the only way I could find that would get around iCloud's penchant for re-syncing my lost calendar back into oblivion.

I think these are the steps that will work. For reference I am using Mavericks with iCloud Calendar syncing.

1. Close Calendar.
2. Move the entire contents of the ~\Library\Calendars folder to a temp folder - both as a backup and for comparison below.
3. Stop iCloud Calendar syncing in System Preferences > iCloud
4. Enter Time Machine on the now empty Calendars folder.
5. Restore the contents of the Calendars folder to a time before you deleted/lost your calendar.
6. Now compare the temp folder with the restored Calendars folder to find your missing calendar. I believe it will be in the .caldav folder - a folder in there will not be in your temp folder. You can verify by opening the Events folder inside the missing folder and use Quick-look to view the lost events.
7. Copy that Events folder out to your Desktop.
8. Open your Calendars application - your iCould synced calendars will not be there, but they are still in iCloud.
9. Create a new calendar "On My Mac" - it has to be local - if you turn on iCloud syncing before this step you won't be able to create a local calendar "On My Mac".
10. Drag the contents of the Events folder from your Desktop to the new calendar. Wait for the events to copy over.
11. Close Calendar.
12. Turn iCloud Calendar syncing back on in System Preferences > iCloud
13. Open Calendar.
14. Calendar should now re-sync all the iCloud calendars back - and - it will copy the new "On My Mac" calendar to iCloud - restoring all you lost events. You can rename the new calendar.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

These answers are all okay and I eventually got the first answer (from Matt Love) to work BUT ONLY AFTER I found that the Library Folder referred to is invisible on the desktop. This had kept me baffled and angry for an hour. You can't find it - either on your Boot Volume or on Time Machine - unless you search for "Calendars" and select the right one. Then, on the desktop you can force Library to reveal itself by selecting "Open enclosing folder". In Time Machine you search for "Calendars" and get a whole heap of items, you just have to keep checking inside each one until you find one that looks something like the old one you've already inspected on the desktop (and, yes, it does look confusing inside!). Time Machine hung repeatedly while I was doing this, which made me even happier! But finally I just restored "Calendars" and it worked. I didn't need to do the extra copying of plist files. This was on a MacBook Core2Duo 2GHz 3G/500G OS10.7.5