Have you been getting more spammy invites to things in your icloud Apple calendar – like fake events, Ray-Ban sales and Ugg discounts? Well you’ll be kind of pleased to know you are not alone. Apple is aware of the issue and working to fix it but without a known timeframe. In the meantime here are a couple of ways to deal with it.
All you have to do is Google it and the internet is abuzz with ‘how to ‘fix-it articles on the subject at the moment. It has also been happening to some people with iCloud Photo Sharing spam, sadly at the moment there’s not much you can do there.
Don’t decline it!
Unlike with email spam, simply declining the events may make things worse, since it shows the spammers that your account is active, increasing the odds of getting more spam in the future.
In a statement made to iMore, Apple commented that it is aware of the issue and is working to address it.
“We are sorry that some of our users are receiving spam calendar invitations. We are actively working to address this issue by identifying and blocking suspicious senders and spam in the invites being sent.”
Icloud Calendar Fixes
Option 1: Create a new “Spam” calendar in the Calendar application, move the invite to that newly created calendar, and then delete the entire calendar (and with it, the spammy invites).
Here’s a step through for you.
- Launch the Calendar app on your iPhone.
- Tap Calendars at the bottom of the screen.
- Tap Edit in the upper corner of the screen.
- Tap Add Calendar under iCloud.
- Name the calendar “Spam”, and then tap Done.
- Tap Back in the upper corner of the screen.
- Tap on the spam invitation.
- Tap Calendar under the invitation name.
- Tap Spam to add the invitation to the new “Spam” calendar.
- Tap Back in the upper corner of the screen.
- In the main calendar view, tap Calendars at the bottom of the screen.
- Tap Edit in the upper corner of the screen.
- Tap Spam under iCloud.
- Scroll down to the bottom, and then tap Delete Calendar.
- Tap Delete Calendar once more to confirm.
One last important thing. When you trash the “Spam” calendar, make sure to select the “Delete and Don’t Notify” option that appears to make sure you won’t notify spammers of your account.
Option 2: Log into your iCloud account on Apple’s iCloud website, and head over to the Settings icon. Then navigate to Preferences -> Advanced -> Invitations, and set it so that calendar invites are sent to your email account instead, where they will either hopefully be caught by your spam filter or can be easily trashed without confirming your account to spammers.
This will, however, cause all of your calendar invites to go to your email, even the ones you actually want to receive. It’s not a perfect solution, but if you’re truly being hounded by spammers, it could work as a temporary solution until Apple fixes the problem for good.
iCloud Photo Sharing Fixes
You should turn off the feature altogether (go into Settings, then to Photos & Camera, and “Disable iCloud Photo Sharing”). That’s your only option for now until Apple solves these problems.
Sources:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/1/13800918/how-to-fix-icloud-calendar-spam
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/139634-apple-icloud-calendar-spam-what-s-going-on-and-is-there-a-fix
