Reaching the hard limit on the size of Apple's icloud calendar?

[meremortal]

Hi,

I've posted this to Apple's forum but decided to post it here in the hope of getting a response to a question I will post at the end.

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I recently set up my wife's new Mac Studio to replace her 2015 iMac on May 15th 2022. On Monday 16th we discovered that her calendar was not syncing properly. At first I thought it was due to something wrong or corrupt with the account and after numerous troubleshooting attempts over a number of hours (turning calendar off and on again, deleting cache, creating new local account and a number of other things as well as a number of calls to Apple Support) we have discovered that Apple has a hard limit on the size of it's free icloud calendar offering. She can no longer add any more calendar entries on any device, nor do they synchronise. It's "full".


Limits for iCloud Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks and Maps – Apple Support (AU)
Limits for iCloud Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks and Maps


It took me FAR too long to figure this out. I've wasted approximately 10 hours on this. Something that SHOULD have been a simple notification or error message with clear and precise instructions such as - you are nearing your limit on calendar entries or you have reached the limit on your calendar entries or something to that effect with some sort of advice for a workaround or a solution should be provided.


My wife has used her calendar on her icloud account for approximately 15 calender entries a day (just text - things like Call John, Follow up on Will, Take dog to vet etc - simple calendar entries - exactly as it is meant to be used for) for a little over a decade. 10 years of approx 15 entries a day and the hard limit of 1GB or 50,000 entries appears to have been reached. Of course there are limitations to the size of databases however 1GB/50, 000 entries appears tiny in 2022.


I would not say she is an excessive user of her calendar. She is using it as it is meant to be used.


She cannot be the only person on the planet to have experienced this issue.


A staff member from Apple has been assisting me and can see her calendar is at 993.27MB (can't see the number of entries) and hopefully there can be some sort of fix that doesn't require a workaround or a completely new solution for us. The apple staff member has sent requests through to higher levels of support and she received advice from an engineer at Apple that the only solution is to delete some of her old calendar entries. From my perspective it appears I can only look at resolving this with workarounds and certainly the Apple engineer's (who advised the staff member) workaround to "delete old calendar entries" is not going to happen.


Options for a workaround as I see it are


1. go back and delete old entries to free up space which is very time consuming (this won't happen so will ignore this option)

2. create a new .icloud account and start from scratch again starting fresh - kind of like getting a new phone number so a big hassle

3. keep old icloud account account for imessage/facetime etc for all her existing contacts but create a new calender for her to use on a new service such as gmail or some other calendaring option that doesn't have a hard limit that won't leave us in the same boat in 10 more years or less depending on calendar useage


The BEST solution would be for Apple to either increase the limit from 1GB/50,000 entries to something larger or offer a paid solution similar to icloud storage that caters to larger calendar users (even though I don't see my wife's usage as excessive in any way - if 1GB and 50,000 entries is deemed as large I cannot imagine what a business would use).


Does anyone have any further information they can provide on this? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks for your time.

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My question is:

Based on Option 3 can anyone think of a good calendering option that will provide her with a good calendar for longer than 10 years or the limits of 1GB/50,000 entries?

Thanks for your time.

Me


EDIT

I should have mentioned she already pays for a 2TB icloud monthly storage plan which has plenty of space available.

 

[ferrarr]

How about if you archive the current calendar and put that onto another user account? Then start fresh or just delete her current user Calendar database? I don't think you will have to access the old calendar too frequently?

 

[IWT]

Member ferrarr (Bob) has offered a really good option.

If I may, I have a couple of comments:

Firstly, iCloud Storage covers everything that you backup to there, not just Calendars and it includes all devices, not just the iMac. So it may be other items/other devices that are taking you over the limit??

Secondly, Apple charges $0.99/month for 50GB storage and $2.99 for 200GB of storage.

I fully understand that folks have fiscal restraints, but for the price of one coffee/month, you can get 200GB - not bad, eh?

Ian

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Options for a workaround as I see it are


1. go back and delete old entries to free up space which is very time consuming (this won't happen so will ignore this option)

This doesn't have to be time consuming. In the search box, start with one year at a time. Type in, oh... let's start with 2015 for laughs. Just type in 2015. Highlight everything. Right-click. Delete.

Now, that isn't entirely foolproof as you would have to screen the list to make sure you don't capture something by mistake. But here's something that IS foolproof. For starters, make a backup of the calendar, just to be sure. You can export it from the menu. Next, start by setting Calendar to view one month at a time. Go to, oh.... let's say March 2015. Press COMMAND-A to select everything for that month. Then go to the menu: Edit » Delete. And you are done for that month. Now, if the Delete command is unavailable, then there may be a subscription to a calendar service that you need to toggle off. For example, the built in Holidays calendar is overkill for me, so I subscribe to a US Federal Holidays calendar by a 3rd party whose entries can't be deleted. In this case, I just have to uncheck that calendar from the left-hand column. Then I can batch delete as described.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Look at it the other way, you've been happily using the free calendar for 10+ years and you find that it works for you. If you don't want to do any cleanup of any sort, then just pay the $1 a month and get the 50GB storage plan that will take are of this problem completely.

Don't want to pay? Then do all the recommended clean up or start a new calendar or switch to a different service to do so.

The whole idea of limits on free services is to allow you to use it and then pay for it at the rate you wish to use it for.

 

[krs]

Look at it the other way, you've been happily using the free calendar for 10+ years and you find that it works for you. If you don't want to do any cleanup of any sort, then just pay the $1 a month and get the 50GB storage plan that will take are of this problem completely.

When I read the OP's original post, it came across that he would be happy to pay for more storage but that this was not an option available from Apple.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

When I read the OP's original post, it came across that he would be happy to pay for more storage but that this was not an option available from Apple.

Yes, they want to pay for just for the calendar updates, but getting a paid iCloud account will get you a boost across all services, including the calendar.

 

[krs]

Yes, they want to pay for just for the calendar updates, but getting a paid iCloud account will get you a boost across all services, including the calendar.

Doesn't sound like that

Limits for iCloud Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks and Maps – Apple Support (AU)

To help iCloud keep your Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks and Maps up to date, keep your information within these limits.

support.apple.com

I read this as a hard limit on the calendar

 

[pm-r]

read this as a hard limit on the calendar

+1.
I read it that several categories have set limits. And no mention of any extra money being able to buy you more, and I thought everything came down to money!!!

As Randy would say, maybe they should get a lawyer to write up what the limits actually truly are so it is not so ambiguous.


- Patrick
=======

 

[Slydude]

I had this issue several years ago and got essentially the same answer from Apple. My problem was also complicated by the fact that my calendar entries were duplicated 2 - 3 times. I opted for a calendar cleanup which was not as time consuming as I expected. I don't think paying for additional iCloud space fixes the problem.

After the cleanup I made a few changes to the way i keep a calendar. Hopefully I can avoid future issues:

1. Events that do not have a specific time associated with them usually end up in the Reminders app rather than the calendar. e.g. Pay rent one the first of the month is a reminder. The appointment with a doctor at 10:00 a.m. is a calendar.
2. If a calendar gets duplicated I figure out why and get rid of the duplicates.
3. Some entries get deleted after a period of time. Do I really need to know that I was at a birthday party 10 years ago on the first of June?

If you opt to move to a different calendar service it might be worth checking with them to see if they have similar limits in place,

 

[krs]

How about if you archive the current calendar and put that onto another user account? Then start fresh or just delete her current user Calendar database? I don't think you will have to access the old calendar too frequently?

I think at this point if the OP wants to keep using the iCloud calendar, this is the best option except that I would probably duplicate the last six months or the whole of last year at the beginning of the new calendar.
That way more recent events (within 6 months or a year) are easily accessible.
All really depends what past events the OP needs to have access to.

PS: For my own purposes I just created a simple calendar using Excel.
Click and drag down to automatically create the dates and then expand the number of rows per date as needed.
After 7 years, I'm currently on row 18000, size of the spreadsheet is 1.4MB

 

[meremortal]

How about if you archive the current calendar and put that onto another user account? Then start fresh or just delete her current user Calendar database? I don't think you will have to access the old calendar too frequently?

Interesting idea. Not sure how to delete her current calendar en masse/in bulk or archive it as there are no options to do this I can see...

 

[meremortal]

Member ferrarr (Bob) has offered a really good option.

If I may, I have a couple of comments:

Firstly, iCloud Storage covers everything that you backup to there, not just Calendars and it includes all devices, not just the iMac. So it may be other items/other devices that are taking you over the limit??

Secondly, Apple charges $0.99/month for 50GB storage and $2.99 for 200GB of storage.

I fully understand that folks have fiscal restraints, but for the price of one coffee/month, you can get 200GB - not bad, eh?

Ian

Yes sorry I should have mentioned she already pays for a 2TB icloud monthly storage plan which has plenty of space available. This is outside/separate to the icloud storage plans we can choose to pay for. If it wasn't this problem would be easily solvable by just throwing money at it.

 

[meremortal]

This doesn't have to be time consuming. In the search box, start with one year at a time. Type in, oh... let's start with 2015 for laughs. Just type in 2015. Highlight everything. Right-click. Delete.

Now, that isn't entirely foolproof as you would have to screen the list to make sure you don't capture something by mistake. But here's something that IS foolproof. For starters, make a backup of the calendar, just to be sure. You can export it from the menu. Next, start by setting Calendar to view one month at a time. Go to, oh.... let's say March 2015. Press COMMAND-A to select everything for that month. Then go to the menu: Edit » Delete. And you are done for that month. Now, if the Delete command is unavailable, then there may be a subscription to a calendar service that you need to toggle off. For example, the built in Holidays calendar is overkill for me, so I subscribe to a US Federal Holidays calendar by a 3rd party whose entries can't be deleted. In this case, I just have to uncheck that calendar from the left-hand column. Then I can batch delete as described.

Ok I will take a good hard look at this option. Thankyou.

 

[meremortal]

Look at it the other way, you've been happily using the free calendar for 10+ years and you find that it works for you. If you don't want to do any cleanup of any sort, then just pay the $1 a month and get the 50GB storage plan that will take are of this problem completely.

Don't want to pay? Then do all the recommended clean up or start a new calendar or switch to a different service to do so.

The whole idea of limits on free services is to allow you to use it and then pay for it at the rate you wish to use it for.

Yes sorry I should have mentioned she already pays for a 2TB icloud monthly storage plan which has plenty of space available. This is outside/separate to the icloud storage plans we can choose to pay for. If it wasn't this problem would be easily solvable by just throwing money at it.

 

[meremortal]

When I read the OP's original post, it came across that he would be happy to pay for more storage but that this was not an option available from Apple.

Spot on. I should have mentioned that she already pays for a 2TB icloud monthly storage plan which has plenty of space available. This is outside/separate to the icloud storage plans we can choose to pay for. If it wasn't this problem would be easily solvable by just throwing money at it. I wish!!!

 

[meremortal]

Doesn't sound like that

Limits for iCloud Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks and Maps – Apple Support (AU)

To help iCloud keep your Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks and Maps up to date, keep your information within these limits.

support.apple.com

I read this as a hard limit on the calendar

I think at this point if the OP wants to keep using the iCloud calendar, this is the best option except that I would probably duplicate the last six months or the whole of last year at the beginning of the new calendar.
That way more recent events (within 6 months or a year) are easily accessible.
All really depends what past events the OP needs to have access to.

PS: For my own purposes I just created a simple calendar using Excel.
Click and drag down to automatically create the dates and then expand the number of rows per date as needed.
After 7 years, I'm currently on row 18000, size of the spreadsheet is 1.4MB

Thankyou for this. She needs the full featured functionality of the reminders, alarms and such so this is a good idea for someone like me but wouldn't work for her but thankyou

 

[MacInWin]

I have to say that I don't think that Calendar was ever intended as a substitute for Reminders. Can it? Yes, but Reminders is where I put non-specific timed items. I have reminders set for things I want to do, things I want to be reminded about, and even some recurring events that I don't want to clutter up the calendar with. Generally those recurring events are very short time events like "Call xxx" or "Make Dr. Appt." Calendar is just not the tool for those kinds of things, at least for me.

 

[meremortal]

I had this issue several years ago and got essentially the same answer from Apple. My problem was also complicated by the fact that my calendar entries were duplicated 2 - 3 times. I opted for a calendar cleanup which was not as time consuming as I expected. I don't think paying for additional iCloud space fixes the problem.

After the cleanup I made a few changes to the way i keep a calendar. Hopefully I can avoid future issues:

1. Events that do not have a specific time associated with them usually end up in the Reminders app rather than the calendar. e.g. Pay rent one the first of the month is a reminder. The appointment with a doctor at 10:00 a.m. is a calendar.
2. If a calendar gets duplicated I figure out why and get rid of the duplicates.
3. Some entries get deleted after a period of time. Do I really need to know that I was at a birthday party 10 years ago on the first of June?

If you opt to move to a different calendar service it might be worth checking with them to see if they have similar limits in place,

Amazing thankyou!!! Wonderful to find someone who has actually experienced this. Yes you are absolutely correct paying for additional icloud space doesn't fix the problem. Yes I definitely want to find a better calendaring solution if that is the toure we choose to go down, I literally had no idea Apple's calendar database had such tiny limits so I want to choose one going forward that isn't going to have me scratching my head in another 10 years or less as she has been increasing her calendar useage each year. At her current rate a fresh icloud calender with 1GB/50,000 entries would last her 5 years I reckon. On principle I want a calendar that will last as long as she wants to use it - especially in light of the fact she pays for 2TB of icloud storage

 

[meremortal]

I have to say that I don't think that Calendar was ever intended as a substitute for Reminders. Can it? Yes, but Reminders is where I put non-specific timed items. I have reminders set for things I want to do, things I want to be reminded about, and even some recurring events that I don't want to clutter up the calendar with. Generally those recurring events are very short time events like "Call xxx" or "Make Dr. Appt." Calendar is just not the tool for those kinds of things, at least for me.

By reminder I mean the "alert" that a calendar entry can be automated to provide so a simple text/excel/csv style of calendar wouldn't be sufficient for her needs.