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Mac 101: Back up Address Book, iCal, iPhone before MobileMe

by Steven Sande Jul 9th 2008 at 5:00PM

Being the paranoid person that I am, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to back up Address Book and iCal before all of the syncing madness begins between Macs, MobileMe, "the cloud", and iPhone/iPod touch. Here's how to do it (Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard only):

Backing up Address Book
  1. Launch Address Book
  2. Select File > Export > Address Book Archive
  3. Find a location to save the Address Book archive, then click the Save button.
Backing up iCal
  1. Launch iCal
  2. Select File > Backup iCal
  3. Find a location to save the iCal backup, then click the Save button.
Backing up iPhone / iPod touch
  1. Just sync it
Ahhh, don't you feel all safe and happy now? And remember, if you're running Leopard and Time Machine, your backups are going to be backed up, too!

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Being the paranoid person that I am, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to back up Address Book and iCal before all of the...
 

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7 Comments

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RolloM

Wow. Deleting your mobile-me account kills all your calendar and contact data on the iphone, too. Take care...

September 23 2008 at 11:07 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
j.holtslander

This is kind of a no-brainer. What I'd like to know how to do is automating this.

July 30 2008 at 6:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
joey

Will I need to bring my old iphone to upgrade to the 3g? Or am I safe selling the 3g iphone now and just keeping my sim card and keep paying the bill?

July 09 2008 at 10:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
neil blake

Should you not sync your iPhone / iPod touch BEFORE backing up your iCal and Address Book?

July 09 2008 at 7:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
anon

Thanks for the reminder! I thought of doing this before but then forgot until this post.

July 09 2008 at 5:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to anon's comment
Steve

Ditto

July 09 2008 at 6:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Stephen

What about Safari (or other browser) Bookmarks? Should those be archived as well?

July 09 2008 at 5:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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