iCal Issues

[mustang71]

Dear Mac Gurus

Firstly, thank you to all the folks that patrol these forums to help IT dull wits like me. Sincere kudos to you all.

I have two co-related problems with iCAL.

Stupidly, I have two apple IDs - this goes back years and I clearly did it for some unknown reason and now can't undo as I believe you can't merge two apple Ids.

I run a MacBook Pro (new this year), an iPhone XR and an older 2015 IMac. All I keep as up to date as poss (not downloaded Catalina yet on my iMac, but have on my MacBook Pro).

My predominant apple ID - where I have all my downloaded 'stuff' - music, films, etc is associated with what I call my 'work apple ID' - that is to say it's my work email address (NOT an iCloud or @me address) and my OTHER apple ID is an @me.com.

For some unknown reason, when my colleagues at work send me diary invites to my work email (remembering this is my 'work' apple ID too), they show up in my calendar associated with my iCloud address.

First question - can I 'turn off' my iCloud calendar and have my work apple ID run my calendar? Or is that what an @me.com address does - basically, run a calendar (amongst other things)? This causes problems as for example, when I try to invite a client to a meeting, they get an email from my personal email (my @me.com) one, NOT my work email.

This leads to the second issue - that all my work colleagues (there are 7 of us all using macs) - and when we try to invite each other to things through Ical (using our work email addresses, which MAY or MAY NOT be apple IDs too) it sometimes works, sometimes they never get the invite. We can't pinpoint any factor which leads to this either working or not working. It's really haphazard (although there must be a common thread we just haven't worked out). I should mention some of the team only have an apple ID which is their WORK email - some had their own apple id when they joined (maybe a gmail or hotmail account) and they use those.

It's driving us all crazy and I'm almost at the point of switching us all to Microsoft office, but before I do, I thought I'd ask you kind geniuses what I'm doing wrong..... please enlighten me. Thank you very much for your time.

Oh, and aside from the team issue - the supposedly more simple task of my own devices syncing across my laptop, phone and desktop is not reliable either..... arghh!!!!

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

I don't personally use iCal but some of our members do. Since tomorrow (already today) is the Thanksgiving Holiday, I don't know how many of our members will be monitoring the forums. But hang on and I'm sure someone will try to help.

 

[IWT]

@mustang71

A warm welcome to Mac-Forums.

I'll try to take you through some settings and options which I hope will be of some benefit. You will probably have to do this for BOTH your Apple ID Calendars.

Open Calendar. Click on the Calendar icon and, from the drop down, choose Preferences, then Accounts. This will show you which account is associated with that particular Calendar. It will also (on the right) show you the Username associated with it - your @me,com or work email address.

Do this for BOTH Calendars and make sure that the settings are correct (ie Work versus Personal - ie personal email versus @me.com)

Now for BOTH Calendars, again Open them (one by one), Click on the Calendar icon and, from the Drop Down, choose "Accounts". Review the info shown there. Your Work Account should NOT show @me.com; only your personal email. Your Personal Account should only show your @me.com.

Change/delete as appropriate.

[For further info, read this:

Click the Add button , then select an account provider.

If you don’t yet have an account from a particular provider, such as Yahoo!, create one on the provider’s website, then add it here.

To add an account from a provider that isn’t listed, such as a mail or calendar account for your company or school, do either of the following:

From an app: Click Add Other [Type of] Account, then click Continue.

From Internet Accounts preferences: Click Add Other Account, then select the type of account to add.

Enter the requested account information.

If you don’t know the account settings, ask the account provider.

If you’re adding an account that multiple apps can use, a dialogue appears in which you select the apps you want to use with the account.]

The bracketed info will only apply if you need to re-add your Work Account to your Work Calendar - which I hope won't be necessary if you've followed the stages I mentioned above.

Please post back. I know this is complicated and tedious

Ian

 

[ferrarr]

You can share individual Calendars, just by right clicking on them and sharing to other Apple/iCloud ID's. I do this with four Calendars, and my wife shares her work Calendar with me.

 

[mustang71]

Hi there Ian
Thank you so much for your kind welcome and also for helping me with this issue.
I followed the steps you mention and I can't seem to change the email address associated with the account. My only option is to create a new account. I need to do this as weirdly, there is NO calendar associated with my work address - all my calendars (ie all my work stuff) seems to route through my me.com account (my iCloud account).
So this also leads me to ask - if I can create a new calendar account for my work email address (which I can't currently - it says that it can't verify the user name or password, even though I know the details are right), is there any way I can copy all my current work calendars over from where they are sat now, to my (hopefully) new work calendar? I assume if I delete the calendar in iCloud, I'd lose all my work appointments, including past history?
I'm in a right pickle with this!!!
By the way - apologies for the slow reply - I'm based in Singapore, so there's a chunky time difference thing going on here. I may also not be able to log on over the weekend, so I'll come back to you as soon as I can if you're able to comment further.
Appreciate all your help, thanks.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the warm welcome. And a very happy thanksgiving to you and yours!