Calendar won’t sync from iCal on iMac to iPhone or MobileMe.

Sebastien, Sep 17, 2008

Changes I make to my iCal won’t sync to my Calendar on my iPhone, even when I sync it with iTunes. Nor do the changes show up on my MobileMe

 

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  • Eden

    I had the same problem… after installing and re-installing both iCal and iTunes several times, and even reinstalling the OS software, I found that there is a folder named “Calendars” that I deleted and it fixed my issue!

    FIRST MAKE A BACK-UP OF YOUR iCAL CALENDAR(S)!
    In iCal: File ===> Back up iCal…

    Be sure to save it to a place where you’ll remember where it is (Desktop is always good!)

    I’d quit iCal first then the Calendars folder is in the Library of your user folder:

    User (Home) Folder ===> Library ===> Calendars

    Drag the Calendars folder to the trash and empty it.

    Then open iCal again, it should be blank now. In iCal go to:

    iCal ===> File ===> Restore iCal…

    Direct it to the back up file. Now try syncing your iPhone. This SHOULD work… at least it did for ME… after an extensive search online and trying everything I could think of, I couldn’t believe it was such an easy fix!!

    I’m interested to know if this helps anyone else, please be sure to post your results!

  • Eric

    I was having issues syncing all my subscribed calendars. This fix worked great. I didn’t even have to restore, OSX did it automatically after I deleted the Calendars folder.

  • Hank

    No luck

  • Digideon

    This worked great for me! Thanks a LOT!

    Greetings from Holland

  • jessica

    What version of Mac OS are you running?

    I’m on a powerbook g4 with OSX 10.4.11 (tiger)
    and there is no Calendars folder in my library…

    when I sync my iphone 3G using itunes, everything else syncs but it stays on “syncing calendars” for hours if I don’t quit it, and when I do my calendars are not updated.

  • http://noreimerreason.com No Reimer Reason

    The backup and delete of the calendar folder worked for me. Thank you so much for posting this!

  • minnow

    Works for me!

    Thanks a lot!

  • dave

    Worked great… thanks for the fix!!!

  • Clint

    You are the Master Eden. I love You. Works greate.

  • Brandon

    This worked for me!!!! I was on the phone with Apple for 45 minutes. They suggested creating a new user account and seeing if the calendar events would sync. They did, then I logged on back on to my normal account, with no direction. I googled my problem, found this site, and woohoo!!!

    Thanks!

  • Val

    Having tried everything else detailed on all the different help forums I finally found this solution and PRESTO it worked THANK YOU!

  • pete

    i found the apple troubleshooting list helped. (for me it was trying manual PUSH of data and restart).
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1672

    didn’t try your method above because it was unclear which files to backup.

  • kate

    OMG! Thank you so much! I spent 3hours at the Apple store with Geniuses and another 45mins with an online chat…you ROCK!

    Totally working now. Let’s hope it stays that way!

  • http://clicktag.co.uk Jon L

    nice one- thanks this worked perfectly. Someone at apple needs to add this solution to their support site.

    thanks again

  • randy

    i’m bookmarking this site to show the “geniuses” in Austin, Texas. after 3 chat sessions and a 3 hour stay at the store today, this fix worked. Thank you!

  • http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/ Sebastien

    @randy – tell the geniuses they can always come here to find out how to fix iphone issues!

  • fen

    unfortunately it didn’t work for me :-(

  • spk

    Yep, worked for me too! Thanks alot for posting. I have been trying to sync for a week and tried everything.

  • DK

    Won’t let me empty trash with calendar cache in it. Tried forcing empty with Option key, but that won’t work either.

  • http://www.caricaturesbydave.com Dave

    Didn’t work in the slightest. Contacts won’t sync. Calendar won’t sync.

    Mobile Me, you used to work great. Now you are $100 per year and you suck hard…

    • MARK DEMORY

      If you go into setting (on iPhone) then Mail,Contacts, Calendars. Scroll all the way to the bottom and there is a Calendars secton, and the bottom on is “Default Calendar”
      Mine was set to to Yahoo. There are choices of Home, Work, Gmail, Yahoo (at least on mine)
      I changed it to home and everything sync fine.
      I had no clue I had defaulted to Yahoo.
      Had to redo all my Appointments, but fortunaetly my iPhone is only 2 months old

  • Clinton

    Worked perfectly thanks, I tried other forums advice – this was the only fix that worked :)

  • mimi

    Didn’t work for me.
    I’m trying to sync my calendar from my iphone to an empty ical calendar on my imac.
    MobileMe didn’t work either.

  • Joe Briskey

    I just solved this problem by selecting my iPhone in iTunes 8.2.1, then clicking on the “Info” tab at the top of the iPhone window; I found that a number of things had been deselected, including “Sync iCal calendars.” I reselected each and found that iPhone and iCal now sync fine, as does Address Book contacts, etc. I recently installed the OS update to 10.5.8; I wonder if this problem happened then?

    Joe

    • Meg

      Thanks, Joe. This worked for me also!

  • Smith

    I spent forever trying to figure this out, and Joe Briskey finally solved it for me. Somehow the sync calendar option under “info” in itunes 9 became unchecked. Simply rechecking the box solved the whole problem. Thanks!

  • Ned

    This fix worked great!

  • Sergey

    hey guys, i had the same problem and tried out everything you mentioned, but the problem turned out to be very simple: there are two different calendars, “home” and “work”. i used to save all my appointments under the “home” label, but then accidentally switched to “work” view while browsing, after that i couldn’t see any of my saved calendar notes. then i switched back to “all” and it is working all fine again. sounds silly, but this is what happened. hope this will help some of you. cheers, sergey.

  • Martane

    Thanks. Worked Great!

  • Tex

    I’m not finding a Calendars folder to discard in my User—-Library folder.

    Any suggestions where it might be? Or why I dont’ have one? Thanks!

  • Ray

    Worked for me too. Except, instead of deleting the old Calendar folder in the Library folder, I just renamed it Calendar.bak.

    After restoring to file saved on the Desktop and syncing, all is back to normal. Thanks for the great tip!

  • Sabrina

    This is great, but I’m wondering if it will help my specific problem…my iCal will sync with my iPhone, but only to a certain point in history. If i go back 3-4 years in my iCal, there will be a lot of entries, but nothing on my iPhone. All current entries sync, but these older ones will not. Anything I can do about this so that I have the older entries on my iPhone also?

  • chris

    This fix worked great! Many thanks!!

    I have the same problem with iCal tho. You dont happen to know a fix for contacts that wont download from Mobileme to iphone?

    Chris.

  • lauren

    this worked perfectly! i was so frustrated by the inability to sync. this was a super easy fix. thank you.

  • http://www.logicmediazone.com Tanya

    Had the exact same problem with iCal sync and my iPhone, used your suggestion worked great! Thanks!!!

  • BikerK

    Thank you so much Eden. Worked perfectly!

  • Kima

    It worked! I’ve searched and searched and tried all kinds of things but this very simple fix worked! Wish I would have though of it ; )

    THANK YOU

  • VS

    Will this delete iCal/restore iCal work even if you are running OS 10.4.11? Or do I have to have OS 10.5…?

  • norm

    Fix worked great. Thanks so much for posting.

  • dani

    i’m missing my “Calendars” folder as well. I’ve tried spotlighting it & etc but it’s just not there. Any suggestions?

  • Sarmen

    To Eden,

    Thank you soooooo much.

    I’ve spent the last two days trying to fix the sync problem with no luck.
    I even spent 1 hour on chat support with Apple, who by the way couldn’t resolve my issue.

    You’re a genius.

    I am soo relieved after being frustrated for two days.

    Thanks again.

  • Megan

    Me, too–worked perfectly!!

  • Jessi

    Sabrina:

    On your iPhone, go to Settings > Mail, Contact, Calendars

    Scroll down to Calendars, and hit “Sync” – it’ll then give you the option to sync just the past couple weeks, couple months, or “All Events”

    …..Now if I can just figure out how to fix this dreadful sync issue (this solution didn’t work for my iMac running 10.4.11), I’d be set. Any insight as to if there’s an issue with still using .Mac instead of MobileMe?

  • anna

    i had tried many suggestions and this is all that worked for me:
    first make sure your mobileme account is set up on your iphone-you can go to me.com ON safari on your iphone for detailed instructions-if it is set up then go to your home screen.
    click on settings/mail contacts, calendars
    click on your email account (xxx@mac.com)
    make sure calendar button is in the “on” position.
    this worked for me when everything else failed. I have a 2008 imac and running OS 10.5.8
    good luck!

  • Tiana

    I also cannot find iCal in my user—>library . I found iCal in user—>library—>application support . Please help!

  • http://johnsonvideo.com Leon

    This solution fixed my iCal sync problem the first time–no hassle at all. Thank you very much.

  • LeJuan

    I tried the save ical folder to desktop, delete, restore, and BAM, IT WORKED!
    Thank You VERY much.

  • amartin

    worked great!

  • Dollbaby

    Life saver! Thank you :)

  • Mazzy Star

    Awesome! Worked for me!

  • Jon

    my iCal does not have either or

    so what now? syncing still not working, apparently with any of my calendars which have always worked fine in the past between my macbook pro and iMac and iPhone.

  • Jon

    my iCal does not have either “File/Backup ical” or “File/Restore iCal.”

    so what now? syncing still not working, apparently with any of my calendars which have always worked fine in the past between my macbook pro and iMac and iPhone.

    • Eden

      In the newer versions, it’s File —> Export —> iCal Archive Then File —> Import —> Import.

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