Migrating data out of Now X into iCal
Wilson Ng
data out of Now X and into iCal.
A bit frustrating since I had about 10 years of data stuck in Now X.
Export iCalendar option didn't seem to work. After mucking around Now
X, I encountered a few obstacles (mainly speed issues) and thought I'd
share this with other folks who may be looking to save their data.
I never really synced my data to iCal and Address Book. I never really
used iCal and had used Now X as my main calendar and contacts program.
So maybe this should help you with taking most of your data out and
putting it into iCal so that your new calendar/contact program can
sync with iCal/Address Book to grab your data.
Launch iCal program and select Preferences. Go to events and make
sure to uncheck the following options:
[ ] Delete events [XX] days after they have passed
[ ] Delete to do items [XX] days after they have been completed
You don't want iCal to auto-delete events and to-do items if you're
trying to preserve your data.
Launch Now X and go to your Now X Preferences. Select Database and
back up your Now X data. You never know. It would be better for you to
restore from an Archive if you really screw something up.
What you'll need to do is assign the "Sync" tag to all of your tasks/
events.
Create a new tab and choose the list view
Go to Edit menu and "Select All" to highlight all events.
Then select Edit > Assign Tags and check on the "Sync" tag.
Wait while Now X does its job. I looked at the Activity pane just to
make sure something was happening. I saw the little striped barber
pole that showed that something was working.
Double check by randomly double-clicking on a task/event and switch to
the sync tag panel. That's the dark area in your event detail window.
You should see the sync tag assigned to the task/event.
Repeat the same steps with contacts. Create a new tab and choose the
contact view. Select all contacts then go to Edit > Assign Tags. check
on the "Sync" tag. Wait until the Activity monitor shows that Now X
has finished its job. Double-click on a few contacts to see if the
contacts have been assigned the "Sync" tag.
Go back to Now X preferences and click on the Sync icon. Check on the
following checkboxes (if you haven't turned them on already)
[ X ] Sync Now-Up-To-Date X Calendar Events with SyncServices
[ X ] Sync Now Contact X Contacts with SyncServices
Close the Preferences window
Go to the menu bar and select Fiile > Sync Now > Advanced Sync
Click on the Slow Sync box and then click on the Sync button.
All of your events and tasks should be saved to iCal and Address Book.
Your new program should be able to sync iCal data and Address Book
data. Check your new program's manual for more information.
Sadly, you will have to double-check your tasks/events and contacts
for custom notes and attachments in Now X and find another alternative
storage solution. You may have to grab all those attachments and re-
attach them in your new PIM.
I usually keep my contact attachments in DevonThink so I didn't suffer
too much. It was mostly double-checking my contact's custom notes.
Hope this helps.