Automate iCal backups

Aug 13, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

This is a tip about using iCal and AppleScript to create automatic daily backups of iCal data. Full credit for this goes to BusyMac.

Here is the brief procedure, and there are some helpful illustrations at the BusyMac site, and some suggested modifications as well.

Now every night at 11:00 PM, iCal will run the AppleScript and back itself up. And, iCal does not have to be running for the script to run.

By default, the script creates backup files that are date and time stamped (iCal 2008-11-14 23.00.00.icbu) and stores them in ~/Documents/iCal Backups. It archives up to ten days worth of backups and deletes the older backups.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. I've used iCal scheduled scripts for a number of things elsewhere, and it's proven to be a handy technique. This is a good script, and since it's available as source can serve as a good lesson for things like OS version checking.]

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