Basics4Mac - Backing Up Your iCal Calendars

Make sure you don't lose your appointments

Export iCal calendars
Click to see a larger image

Ok, cue the recording. Ready, go: "You do have a backup plan, right?". If I've said it once I've said it 80 million times, you need a backup plan because at some point you will lose data either through theft, corruption or mechanical failure.

I was working with a client this week and her iCal calendars had gone haywire. I logged into her machine to take a look and things were very strange indeed. I know that she backs up, however, so I wasn't too worried.

But then I had a thought: iCal doesn't have any Save function and the calendars aren't saved in your Documents folder where you can easily find them. So where (and how) are they stored? The answer is not at all obvious and not something you are likely to attempt on your own.

Of course a complete restore from backup would work but it is certainly overkill. Fortunately iCal has a way to save its data in your Documents folder where you can restore it later:

Go to File / Export / iCal Archive from the Menu Bar.
Choose a place to save your Archive. Your documents folder is a good place.

If you ever need to restore just your iCal calendar data, you can go to File / Import... from the Menu Bar and choose your iCal Archive.

If you live and die by your iCal calendars, you might want to put an Event on your calendar to create an Archive every week or so. A couple of notes:

There isn't any way to restore a single calendar from the Archive. You have to restore all of them. And, of course, restoring is going to overwrite any data since you last make an Archive.
Address Book has a similar Export to Archive feature.
If you have Mobile Me, you can use Backup 3 to automate the archiving process. The built-in "Personal Data and Settings" plan will back up your iCal Calendars, Address Book, Keychain, Safari settings and Stickies. I run that plan daily as part of my total backup plan.