icalicloudmacosrestoretime-machine
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.
If you use the Finder's menu "goto" while holding down the Alt, the library folder is visible in the menu:
Select it. The finder shows the content of /Users/<your name>/Library. Now start Time Machine by clicking on its icon in the dock – violà, you have what you want:
When you want to access another invisible folder that is not listed in the 'Go' list in Finder you can go to the same folder and choose for 'Go to Folder' or CommandShiftG. Here you can type in any location you want to goto.
I asked staff at the Apple Store the same question, who consulted with a Genius. As of Mountain Lion, it is still not possible to go into Time Machine via iCal/Calendar. In other words, the only solution is to manually restore deleted entries from raw iCal/Calendar files (located in ~/Library) using Time Machine.
There is a related discussion on Apple Support Communities:
The person I spoke to also reminded me to turn off iCloud before attempting the restore procedure, as it may corrupt existing calendars.
Best Answer
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 calledcom.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.