Annoying Spam Invites Are Once Again Plaguing Apple's Calendar App

An old foe of Apple device owners has returned, as reports indicate that spam invites sent to Apple's Calendar app are once again wreaking havoc. While Apple Calendar spam has never truly ceased to exist since it first began to run rampant almost a decade ago — sparking a relatively rare instance of correspondence from Apple to its customers on the matter –- there have been stretches of time where the spam isn't appearing at such a high clip. Unfortunately, some Apple users are dealing with an uptick at the moment.

It's unclear if this is because of something Apple has done in the background or if it's just a matter of spammers finding new ways to get spam into Apple Calendar. Despite it all, though, based on reports from 9to5Mac, it seems some Apple users may be facing another influx of spam calendar invites, which means there's really only one thing you can do: Stay vigilant.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to cut down on calendar event spam in Apple Calendar, as the app automatically pulls event invites found in your email and adds them to the calendar with three different response options: Accept, Decline, and Maybe. Therefore, even if you aren't adding these events or subscribing to another calendar, you might end up with a calendar that has become littered with spam events.

The official answer, at least based on a video that Apple released four years ago, is to make sure you first unsubscribe to any event calendars that you might have unknowingly subscribed to. To do this, open the Calendar app, tap Calendars, then tap the info button on any calendar that you don't recognize. You can delete the calendar or unsubscribe from it, and it should remove all of the events associated with that particular calendar.

However, if the spam in question is an event that has automatically been added from a spam email, then the only way to deal with it is to delete the invite and then go through your email, block the sender of those spam emails, and then delete the emails.

While it might be tempting to immediately tap Decline on the spam invites that you receive, it's highly recommended that you don't do this — for the same reasons that you shouldn't respond to spam emails. Responding in any manner shows that you are an active user and could potentially make you an even more attractive target for scammers in the future.

Instead, make sure to follow the steps outlined above and on Apple's support page to delete and unsubscribe from any scam events without directly alerting the scammer that your account is active. Not everyone using Apple Calendar will be bombarded with spam, but there clearly isn't much Apple can do to stop it at the moment — though perhaps future updates will strengthen the company's spam-fighting efforts. The company has been improving how it combats spam, including launching new message filters to help cut down on text messaging spam.

In the meantime, make sure you don't click on any links in those spam events, and be sure to delete them whenever you spot them.