Creative Tech Support

Sometimes you need to move things from one account to another – say email messages from an old Yahoo account to Gmail, calendar events from Google Calendar to iCloud, or contacts from one person’s iCloud account to another person.

First, add the internet accounts on your Mac and enable Contacts, Calendars, Reminders or Notes apps as required. Or learn how to add additional iCloud accounts. Then follow the steps below.

Mail

It’s as easy to move messages from one account to another as it is to file messages into folders. Just be patient – it can take time for your Mac to upload the messages.

Contacts

1. Open the Contacts app. Click the View menu and Show Groups if you don’t see them on the left side.
2. Select a contact and drag it to the appropriate group or account. Hold the command key to select multiple cards or the shift key to select a range.
3. To copy an entire group, drag the the name of the group from one account to the All section under the other account. For example, if you want to copy the group to iCloud, drag it to All iCloud.
4. If all contacts are needed, click the All group under one account and drag to All group under another account.
5. Contacts offers to merge duplicates to avoid listing the same person twice.
6. Delete contacts you don’t need by clicking the All group for that account, then selecting the contact and pressing the delete key. You can select groups and delete them the same way. The actions you take in one account do not affect the other.

Calendars & Reminders

1. Open the Calendar app. Click the View menu and Show Calendar List if you don’t see them on the left side.
2. Drag an event from the main calendar view to a calendar in the left sidebar to move it to that calendar. Hold the option key to make a copy and leave the original in its place.
3. To copy an entire calendar with all events, select one in the sidebar. Click the File menu and Export – Export… Save the calendar on the desktop or in a folder.
4. To create a new calendar on another account, choose File – New Calendar and save it in the account where you want it.
5. To import a calendar, choose File–Import and open a .ics file you’ve created in step 3. Choose a calendar to store the events. This could be an empty calendar (step 4) or combine events into an existing calendar.

What about Reminders? They work exactly the same way as calendars – just use the Reminders app and View–Show Sidebar.

Notes

1. Open the Notes app. Click the View menu and Show Folder List if you don’t see them on the left side.
2. Drag a note from notes list to an account in the left sidebar to move it to that account. Hold the option key to make a copy and leave the original in its place.
3. To create a new folder point to the right of the account name and click the + button that appears. For example, create a new folder on iCloud by clicking to the right of iCloud.
4. To move an entire folder, drag the the name of the folder from one account to a folder in the other account. Hold the option key to make a copy and leave it in its original place. You might want to make empty folders in the other account first.

Learn more about email & iCloud.