Understanding iCal Time Zones
TMO Quick Tip - Understanding iCal Time Zones
by , 7:30 AM EDT, June 12th, 2006
If you use iCal to keep track of your appointments, and you travel or work with people in other time zones, its time zone feature can be a useful tool in keeping you organized. Used improperly, however, and you are likely to miss pretty much every appointment you set.
Setting It Up
Before you can take advantage of iCal's time zone feature, you need to activate it. Here's how:
- Launch iCal. It's in your Applications folder.
- Choose iCal>Preferences.
- Click the Advanced button.
- Check Turn on time zone support.
 Activate iCal's time zone feature in the iCal preferences. |
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 iCal shows your current time zone in the upper right corner of its window. |
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Making It Work
Once you enable time zone support, you need to make sure that every appointment you create has the correct time zone associated with it, or you may see events jump around to the wrong time if you travel to a different time zone. I always attach the originating time zone to each appointment I schedule so that they time shift correctly when I travel, and so that I have something to remind me which time zone the person I am meeting with is in.
For example, all of my local appointments show America/Denver as the originating time zone. If one of the TMO editors that lives in California schedules a phone meeting with me, I set the appointment time zone to America/Los Angeles.
 Be sure to choose a time zone for every appointment. |
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My local (Denver) appointments stay at the local time in iCal as long as I don't travel to a different time zone. Appointments, like my meetings with other TMO editors, slide up an hour since California is an hour behind me. A 10:00am appointment Los Angeles time appears as an 11:00am appointment Denver time.
If the time zone you need isn't in your list already, just choose Other from the time zone pop-up menu in your event info drawer.
When you switch time zones, your appointments will move in relation to your new location. My TMO meeting that shows up at 11:00am when I'm at my desk in Colorado jumps to 10:00am when I fly to California - showing me the correct local time for my meeting.
If you don't assign a time zone to an event, or if you assign the wrong one, your appointment will probably appear at the wrong time in your schedule, and will bounce to another wrong time slot if you switch time zones. Wrong time zones can also cause big headaches if you synchronize to a PalmOS device like a Treo.
Bypassing Time Zones
If you want to set an appointment that stays at a specific time regardless of which time zone you are in - meaning an appointment you schedule for 10:00am stays at 10:00am on your schedule, even if you travel to another continent - choose Floating from the time zone pop-up menu.
Play around with iCal's time zone feature to see if it meets your needs. Some people like it, and some don't. I have found it to be a great tool for managing my appointments across different time zones.
Warning: If you aren't using Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), I don't recommend enabling iCal's time zone support. Earlier versions tended to throw your appointments around with little regard for your actual schedule. Many people also found that they lost scheduled events, or ended up with duplicates when synchronizing with a Palm PDA.
if you have ideas for Mac related tips that you think other TMO readers might find helpful.
Observer Comments
Fri May 04, 2007 7:53 am Subject:
These two quotes are from the Apple Forums - my problem is IDENTICAL to these gentlemen:
"Hi all,
I'm just a guy who recently migrated from Palm Desktop and who doesn't like to be in Madrid, for example, only to see his Chicago appointments listed seven hours ahead. I've been managing time zones in my head my whole life and don't really need or want iCal to "help" me out with it.
That said, does anyone know of a script available or other method that will allow one to change all events in iCal to "floating"? I would prefer to not have to do this one event at a time.
Thanks much for your thoughts and insight.
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.7)
tonyhj
Posts: 4
Registered: Sep 9, 2006
Re: Question re. converting multiple events to floating time zone
Posted: Sep 9, 2006 4:25 PM in response to: Ryan Grub
I'm glad this topic is here, and sad that it hasn't generated any useful replies in almost 20 days! I really had to dig before I found this unanswered question!
I've posted my own - somewhat comparable - problem and possibly someone will notice and answer. My question, posted Sept 9, is entitled "Can I disable 'time zone' actions done by iCal?"
____________________________
Does ANYONE have a solution for this? How to GLOABLLY set ALL EVENTS (or at least all events in a given Calendar) to FLOATING, including RETROACTIVELY???
iCal 2.0.5, Powerbook G4, OS X 10.4.9
Thanks! 
this is driving me INSANE.
Back in Central time, with the Time Zone Assist turned on, I could synch iCal to my iPod and things would be correct.
Then I moved east.
I reset the time zone (and correct time) on the iPod, and did the same for my computer. Now, on iCal, my appointments do show up at the correct times, and in the correct time zone.
HOWEVER, when I synch my iPod, it moves every single appointment to one hour later. Everything. A 3-5 pm meeting now says it's 4-6 pm.... but ONLY on the iPod.
I'll re-set the time zone to Eastern on the iPod, appointments will slide back into their correct time slots, and then, once I synch the iPod with new songs/appointments, it does the same thing again.
Tried turning OFF the time zone helper on iCal, to no avail.
HELP, HELP, HELP- I cannot find any info about this and am pulling my hair out in frustration.
Time zones in general in mac seem to throw everything out of wack. I worked in Australia so I thought it was a good idea to change time zones. I added iCal appointments, I imported photos, I added contacts including their birthdays. When I got back to Canada and reverted timezones everything was messed up. Birthdays that I added were moved a day back! What the heck is that all about? If someones birthday is Apr 4, it is nice to know that it is on Apr 4 no matter what timezone I am in. I have learned to never change time zones now.
One issue i have had with iCal is entering my flight times. Normally the arrival and departure are in different time zones. There is not option for entering a start time in one time zone and end time in an other.
To work around I have to convert all my flights into UTC so they will show up with the proper duration and will appear at the right times when i change my calandar time zone.
Pain in the *ss but apple seems not to care about this issue.
A birthday is associated with a timezone just like anything else with a date --
presumably your friends in Australian celebrate their birthdays in their local timezone? If you want to call and wish one of them a happy birthday, you'd better call between 0000-2400h 4/4 AEDT (or whatever their TZ is) and not your local Canadian time which could be 15-20 hours later.
I just tried this and it seems to work. I wanted to make all of my floating events be in the America/Denver time zone. To do the opposite, simply reverse the FIND and REPLACE pairs.
Export your calendar from the File menu as an ICS file (the default).
Open the ICS file in TextEdit.
First, find the following:
DTSTART:
Replace with:
DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:
Choose "Replace All"
Then find:
DTEND:
Replace with:
DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:
Choose "Replace All"
Save the ICS file.
Finally, open the ICS into iCal again, and it should work.
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