I (finally) updated to Sequoia. All my reminders are now missing from Apple’s Reminder application. Is there a file in Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner that I could retrieve and restore the reminders?
Thank you.
First, I’m assuming that your Reminders are stored in iCloud rather than locally. If they’re local, I have no advice and you should disregard the rest of this post.
I have had entries in Notes (that were stored in iCloud) fail to update on at least two occasions. The first was while setting up a new Mac that came with Sequoia; the second was yesterday, when I logged in as Admin for the first time in a while. On the first occasion, I simply let the Mac ponder the error of its ways for quite a while, and the entries in Notes began to appear, slowly. Yesterday, I found something amiss, logged out of the Admin account, logged back into the Admin account, and Notes magically synchronized.
The point of all this is that I would encourage you to make sure all your settings are correct before trying to reload your Reminders from a backup. (I wouldn’t know how to do that or even if it could be done.) Make sure that synchronization with iCloud is enabled, that you are logged into your Apple Account, and anything else you can think of. (I don’t know why it would matter in this case, but also confirm that Optimize this Mac is set the way you want. Apple helpfully changes my settings there occasionally.) Then, based on my experience yesterday, log out (of the account on the Mac, not your Apple Account) and log back in. Good luck.
Thank you Will. I don’t use iCloud, but I read your post just the same. For 10+ years, I’ve used a third-party cloud service. It doesn’t want to Optimize my Mac, it doesn’t move or delete my Desktop and Documents folders, I can see every file on the cloud server without having to use a web browser, and a few other features that I like. My cloud service does not backup Users/me/Library, but I too have no idea what I would need in order to restore Reminders.
Coincidentally, Reminders is not my only issue. I had been using Time Machine, principally in the event that I might need to do a massive restore or use Migration Assistant some day (I also used Carbon Copy Cloner). However, iCloud is now preventing me from using Time Machine. For 24 hours, Time Machine says iCloud hasn’t finished syncing. Syncing what? I never intentionally synced my Mac with the only other device on our network (an iPad). Optimize My Mac is Off. Desktop & Document folders is Off. But there is a third panel titled “iCloud Drive” and it’s On. I suspect that’s the problem (who turned it On), but when I move the slider to Off, I get several dire warnings, so I’ve given up for a while.
I waited nine months to update Venture to Sequoia. Should have left well enough alone.
Cheers.
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I’ve been interested in how generative AI’s handle various questions. So I put your question into Perplexity (a TidBITS Talk-designated “answer engine ”). How do you rate its answer?
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/where-does-macos-sequoia-store-sSRSamDXTkCyOalqVSUqbQ
Wow, thank you. The answer seems quite comprehensive. Probably correct? I located my local copy of ~/Library/Reminders/Container_v1/Stores/. I’m not sure about what I see, but there are a bunch of different .sqlite files. When I get a chance (I’m a bit weary wrestling with the Mac all day), I’ll try pulling out the Container_v1/Stores/ folder and replacing it with the same folder from the day before I updated to Sequoia.
I did use Perplexity to try to figure out how to stop iCloud from preventing Time Machine backups. But Perplexity only took me to where I had already been.
Many thanks.
Hmm, something fishy. I replaced the /Stores folder containing the .sqlite files in ~/Library/Reminders/Container_v1/Stores/ with the next oldest /Stores folder in Time Machine (note: there are three other folders in Container_v1, but they are all all empty). The Reminders app did not show the reminders. BUT, the next oldest /Stores folder in Time Machine is two years old! That can’t be right, there must be newer data because I’ve added reminders not so long ago.
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