Seeing birthdays duplicated on Calendar app

[Howard Brazee]

If I’m looking at my calendar, with Birthdays checked in “Other”, I see a few birthdays. My wife’s birthday is there twice (and a third time when her calendar is checked).

If I click on my Contacts calendar it shows every birthday of anybody who’s in our contacts (including a 4th one for my wife’s birthday).

On my wife’s computer, checking “Birthdays” in her calendar app usually shows someone 2-3 times. Sometimes it shows someone’s birthday even though that birthday is not in contacts. I have no idea where it found that birthday.

Any idea why this happens?

 

[MacInWin]

I am going to guess that either you and your wife share one Apple ID account, or that you have Family Sharing turned on on both of your accounts, if you have separate IDs. What happens is that you see your wife's birthday because you have Birthdays turned on in Calendar on the Mac. Then she has Birthdays turned on on her Calendar on her iPhone, iPad or Mac. So, that's two instances. And if the AppleID is shared or you have Family Sharing on, then the calendars sync. And the Contacts apps sync as well, so birthdays listed in there get duplicated.

So, the easiest way to fix is to get separate Apple IDs for you and your wife and turn off Family Sharing. That should eliminate at least some.

Here is Apple's documentation:

If you have duplicate events on your iCloud Calendar - Apple Support

If you see duplicate calendars or events on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC after you set up iCloud Calendar, follow these steps.

support.apple.com

 

[pm-r]

So, the easiest way to fix is to get separate Apple IDs for you and your wife and turn off Family Sharing. That should eliminate at least some.

Maybe it's a good thing for the OP to have his wife's birthday duplicated multiple times and act as multiple reminders and critical dates, and definitely not a date that one's spouse should ever miss. That could be a very critical mistake... and NOT one a spouse would not want to make or regret forgetting... ;-)



- Patrick
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[MacInWin]

TRUE, Patrick. Wise words, indeed.

 

[Howard Brazee]

We do have family sharing with two different AppleIDs. It's odd that I see a different amount of duplicate birthdays than she sees. I get one duplicate by checking both "Birthdays" and "Contacts".

We share a contacts library. I put all of our contacts on a Google account after I discovered that sharing them on an iCloud account kept getting our userIDs confused.

But I don't know why she often gets more birthday notices than I get.