iCloud: getting rid of duplicate calendar entries

UPDATED 25 October 2011

I love iCloud, Apple's new way of sharing information, documents and photos wirelessly across Macs, iPhones and iPads. But when I started using it, I was frustrated to find it copied one of the worst flaws of MobileMe – duplicated calendar entries.

A quick Google search suggested various ways of solving the problem. But I found a very simple solution myself.

On an iPhone or iPad, open Calendar, and open the Calendars tab on the top left. I had 'All from my Mac' ticked as well 'as All iCloud'. Unticking All from My Mac got rid of the duplicates.

I'm now on iCloud 9!

UPDATE, 25 October

Sadly, things didn't prove quite as simple. Everything's fine on the iPhone. But on my iPad I've now got the problem Frank describes in the first comment: clicking between calendars doesn't get rid of the duplicates. Bizarrely, I now have duplicate entries of recurring calendar items. But they're not identical: they're copies of the earliest entry, duplicated for every subsequent entry.I've got duplicates of a stack of old entries on iCal on my Mac – but I can't see any way of selecting any calendar other than iCloud in iCal.

Apple, this is a total shambles.

Ertblog has a new home at robskinner.net. Do visit!

Responses

Frank

19.10.2011

It didn’t work out for me. I did the same and I have now only ‘All iCloud’ ticked in my Calendar setting. But I have still duplicated calendar entries!!!

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Rob Skinner

19.10.2011

Sorry to hear that, Frank. Have you tried unticking iCloud and ticking one of the other calendars? May be worth experimenting.
Rob

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Nic

25.10.2011

So smart! Thanks! ; )

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Deb

28.10.2011

I have the same problem, but in calendars, only appear the iCloud calendar. and does not appear the calendars from my pc, to unselect it.
in the outlook in the PC, i can see that there none entries now in the calendar from outlook and all the duplicate entries are in iCloud calendar in outlook.

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Rob Skinner

01.11.2011

Deb – sorry to hear that. My subsequent experience of iCloud has shown things are far worse than I thought. I’ve blogged again about it on this blog.

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Margaret Koenig

08.11.2011

I don’t even know what iCloud is or how to use it. It doesn’t show up on my iPhone when I choose Calendar and then the calendar button in the upper left. But not only do I have duplicate entries, they add more of the same every time I sync. I’m syck and tired of this. I’ve deleted them over and over and tried to figure out where iCloud is. I just want to sync with Outlook, at least until I understand iCloud.

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M. Kearns

10.11.2011

I had to turn everything off pertaining to ICloud and when it asked me if I wanted to keep the canendar on the Iphone or delete it I deleted it. Then when I synced my phone with itunes it put my calendar from there back on the phone with no duplicates! Stupid ICloud!

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