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

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.

----------------------------------

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)
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202158


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.

------------------------------------

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

 

Why not try a different calendar e.g. Google Calendar which is available free from the Apple App Store?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id909319292?utm_source=gb&utm_medium=gb&utm_id=ios_calendar_2

 

Do you know whether Google's calendar has a better limit than Apple's 1GB/50,000 entries? 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