Can I restore individual iCal appointments using Time Machine? I use Time Machine to backup my Mac. While it is very easy to restore files and folders, I can't do the same with appointments in iCal. I am trying to recover an entire calendar that was accidentally deleted.

Apple provides instructions on how to restore from manually exported iCal archives. It sort of defeats the purpose of Time Machine, where backups are created automatically. By contrast, Time Machine works directly in Address Book in Lion.

Does anyone know if there is a way to restore iCal appointments (or calendars) using Time Machine? I know I can probably restore the cryptic calendar files in the Library folder, but I want to find a better way.
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:


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3851319?start=0&amp;tstart=0


The person I spoke to also reminded me to turn off iCloud before attempting the restore procedure, as it may corrupt existing calendars.