Several events have an asterisk behind them in the Calendar app

Several events in my iCal calendars on my Macs, iDevices, and in iCloud have an asterisk behind them. When I went online, I'm told this is NOT a symbol used by Apple and to check my calendar software. The only problem is that I ONLY USE APPLE's calendar software on my Mid-2011 iMac, iPhone 12, iPad Mini 5 & Mini 7, 2015 MacBook Pro and 2022 MacBook Air.


So does anyone have a clue why the asterisk shows up on these events? I DIDN'T type it in.



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: * after an iCal event?


iMac 21.5″

Posted on Aug 3, 2025 2:16 PM

Reply
5 replies

Aug 11, 2025 5:02 PM in response to romad

Re:"Several events in my iCal calendars on my Macs, iDevices, and in iCloud have an asterisk behind them.

So does anyone have a clue why the asterisk shows up on these events?"


Sorry that I don't know for sure. Wondering if the asterisk could be caused by a particular app (eg: social media) that has access to your calendar in order to add events for you.


For MacOS Sequoia : The support article: Control access to your calendars on Mac - Apple Support

Eg: says:

You can decide which apps are allowed to use your calendar information.


  1. Choose Apple menu  > System Settings, then click Privacy & Security  in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
  2. Click Calendars.
  3. Turn access to your calendars on or off for each app in the list.
  4. If you turn on access for an app, click Options to give the app full access to your calendars, or only allow it to add events to your calendars."


Note: There's more info. in the article itself.

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Else: You could try checking whether you notice something in common between those events marked with an asterisk. If so, that is a clue.


(Eg: could those * events all be in the same calendar / category, (ie: just like "Birthdays" can be a separate calendar / category).


For MacOS Sequoia: How to: Show or hide a calendar on Mac - Apple Support

Eg: says:

"You can choose which calendars you want to see":


"Choose View > Show Calendar List, then do one of the following:

    • Show or hide a calendar’s events: Select or unselect the calendar’s tick box in the Calendar list.
    • Show or hide events from all calendars: Press the Command key while you select or unselect any calendar’s tick box".


Useful resource: Calendar User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

Aug 11, 2025 9:21 PM in response to brbo

My Mid-2011 iMac is maxed out at MacOS 10.13.6 High Sierra


OK, the most common thing is several are birthday entries, 6 out of 10 birthdays. These are in the Birthdays calendar.

The other one is the date 1 family member died; the other three deceased family member entries do NOT have an asterisk. These are in a SEPARATE calendar from the Birthdays calendar


NO applications under System Preferences>Security & Privacy> Calendars have access.


It might be easier to add an asterisk to the 7 entries that DON'T have one as I've already tried deleting them from the 7 that DO have one without success.

Aug 12, 2025 5:39 PM in response to romad

Thank you for checking, and for your reply. That's a step in the right direction. At least you found there's some kind of relationship between many of the asterisked entries.


Seems something is the cause, I can't guess what.

Maybe the asterisk has something to do with how these particular events were all created. (eg: could the asterisk denote the event is from a list ? or another calendar ? transferred from somewhere ? family member's google calendar ?)

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Several events have an asterisk behind them in the Calendar app

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