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Don’t Lose Your Appointments – Back Up Your macOS Calendars

calendar icon and time machine back up icon

The Calendars app in macOS Catalina is automatically backed up if you have an iCloud account and enable this option. However, I like to keep another back-up of my calendar events and urge you to do the same.

Here’s how to make a backup of your Mac’s Calendar:

  1. Launch Calendar.
  2. From the Calendar sidebar, choose the calendar you want to back up.
    screenshot of macOS calendar app

  3. From the menus, select File > Export.
    screenshot of macOS calendar app File srcset= Export menu”>

  4. Use the Save dialog box to browse to a location on your Mac to store the backup, click the Export button. 

The selected calendar will be saved in iCal (.ics) format. Repeat for any other calendars you wish to back up. Saving these files on an external drive is also recommended in case you have problems with your computer.

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Contributing Author
Dennis has over 40 years of journalism experience and has written hundreds of articles. For the past 20-plus years, he's been an online journalist, covering mainly Apple Inc. He's written for MacCentral, MacWorld, MacMinute, Macsimum News, Apple Daily Report, and is now contributing editor at Apple World Today.
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5 Comments

  • Hi,
    Why are we “urged” to make an extra / optional backup? As this export is a manual process (automator?), exporting several calendars each day is not really something to look forward to…
    Or is the backup recommended in case of hardware / software problems — computer replacement — … ?

    Many thanks in advance for your clarification.

    • Time Machine backs everything up but is most useful for restoring files and folders. When it comes to apps and app data, it gets a little more complicated.