Calendar entries disappear after enabling iCloud

Article

Calendar entries disappear after enabling iCloud

Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-, iPhone-, iPad-, iTunes-, or Apple TV-related questions from a member of the iLounge editorial team. We'll answer several questions here each week, and of course, you can always get help with more immediate concerns from the iLounge Discussion Forums. Submit your questions for consideration using our Ask iLounge Submit Form. We reserve the right to edit questions for grammar, spelling, and length.

View the complete Ask iLounge archives...

Q: Help! I told my boss to turn on her iCloud backup since she never syncs her iPhone 4 to her computer. Well, she turned it on and now all her calendar events are gone on her iPhone. I’ve been working on it for a couple of hours now and I can’t figure out where they have gone. I have already changed the syncing of events to all events and they didn’t come back. When I look at my own iPhone, in my calendars, I have a calendar labeled “My iPhone Calendar”. On her phone, there are only iCloud calendars. Is there a setting somewhere to turn on her iPhone calendar? Of course she had everything on her calendar and did not back up regularly to her computer so I can’t retrieve it that way.

- Donna

A: Ordinarily, when enabling iCloud Calendar any existing Calendar entries should be automatically uploaded to the iCloud Calendar, and the local “on your iPhone” calendar is essentially disabled. If the iCloud Calendar is empty, this normally just happens transparently, with local calendars being moved to iCloud.

If the iCloud Calendar and local calendars both contain appointments, you will receive a prompt when enabling iCloud Calendar noting that the two will be merged, with your local Calendars essentially becoming part of the iCloud Calendars.

In either case, you should see the old local calendars appear in the iCloud Calendar section. You’ll want to double-check to ensure that all of the iCloud calendars are in fact enabled in the Calendars app. A quick way to do this is to tap the “Hide All Calendars” button at the top of the calendar listing, changing it to “Show All Calendars” which you can tap again to ensure that all calendars are selected and being displayed.

Even if all of the calendars are being displayed, toggling them off and back on can sometimes refresh the view. You can also try rebooting her iPhone to see if that makes a difference.

It may also be worth logging into her account at iCloud.com and seeing if any calendar entries are showing up there. This will help you determine if they have at least been uploaded to iCloud and perhaps it’s merely her iPhone that’s not displaying them.

If for some reason the local calendars weren’t properly transferred to or merged with iCloud, you can also try simply toggling the iCloud Calendars option back OFF under Settings, iCloud.

You’ll see a prompt about deleting the iCloud Calendars; go ahead and choose this option since the alternative is to copy the (blank) iCloud Calendars back over the local copy, which you don’t want to risk doing. The “Delete” option does not remove any data from iCloud—only the local device section.

Once you’ve toggled off iCloud Calendars, the Calendars app should again show the “On my iPhone” calendars, which hopefully will still contain the original calendar data from before iCloud was switched on.

Unfortunately, if you still aren’t seeing any calendar data even after following the above steps, you may be out of luck if your boss only stored her calendar on her iOS device and hasn’t synced or backed it up anywhere else. If you have made a successful iCloud backup already, you could try restoring the iCloud backup as a last-ditch effort, since the calendars might have been backed up during the initial backup prior to whatever process wiped them out, but that’s actually a long shot and may not be worth the time as you basically have to restore the iPhone to factory settings and restore the backup as part of the initial iOS setup process.

The most asked question at iLounge.com:

How do I copy content from my iPod/iPhone onto my computer?

Converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and more:

The Complete Guide to iPod, Apple TV and iPhone Video Formats

Converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and more:

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Mac)

Converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and more:

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Win)

Best Speakers?

Best Headphones?

Best Case?

Best In-Car Solution?

Best Battery Extender?

Find more answers in the latest publications in our Library. Free downloads developed by the editors of iLounge!

Ask iLounge Archives:

5-16-13: Remove old iCloud backup after restoring to a new iPhone

5-15-13: Setting up a ringtone in iTunes

5-14-13: Using a Wi-Fi hard drive with an iPad

5-13-13: Backing up and restoring an iPod classic

5-10-13: Can’t restore iPod touch without passcode

View the complete Ask iLounge archives...

« Sharing iOS Calendars between family members

Instant Expert: Secrets & Features of Apple TV 5.2 »

Comments

1

Donna should be made aware that you can still backup an iOs device even though it hasn’t been attached to a computer before. Simply connect the device to the computer, cancel the warnings about the device not being connected before and DO NOT ERASE the device. Once the warnings are gone the device should be in the side panel of iTunes and you can select it, right click the mouse and select Back Up from the context menu. That should be the first step before enabling icloud.

Steve

Posted by Steve on February 1, 2013 at 5:50 AM (PST)

2

Hello, I’m hoping someone can help! I have an iPhone4 that I accidentally downloaded my old iphone3GS system without backing up info on my iphone4. Is there anyway to retrieve any data,pics, etc… from the iPhone4 system? I also did not backup any information on the iphone4. Please let me know as soon as you can. I mainly would like to have my pictures/video back. I was going to try restoring the lost data. Do you know if that will work?

Posted by Juanita Jackson on February 1, 2013 at 6:15 AM (PST)

If you have a comment, news tip, advertising inquiry, or coverage request, a question about iPods/iPhones/iPad or accessories, or if you sell or market iPod/iPhone/iPad products or services, read iLounge's Comments + Questions policies before posting, and fully identify yourself if you do. We will delete comments containing advertising, astroturfing, trolling, personal attacks, offensive language, or other objectionable content, then ban and/or publicly identify violators.

Recent Reviews

New Deals

Shop for Accessories: Cases, speakers, chargers, etc.

iLounge

Article