Disappearing Address Book Contacts

This is a duplicate or my response to another similar problem, but I think this problem should have it's own topic.
My Address book contacts have been occasionaly disappearing, I would open Address book and all my contacts would be gone except for the "Apple" and "Me". And I would end up restoring from a backup, which I been doing fequently when this problem first started.
Recently I discovered what the problem is. I have an external drive connected and somehow my Address book contacts have defaulted to being stored on the external drive in a folder I had created for some temporary work some time ago. When I noticed it was still there (some time later) I trashed it.
It took a while for me to make the connection that when I deleted the folder, the address contacts would be gone. Because I wouldn't use my Address Book for days or maybe weeks afterwards
I finally realized that this "temporary" folder kept mysteriously reappearing, so when I checked, it contained the same folder structure as the <user>/library/application support/Address Book/ and sure enough that is where my address book is storing my contacts.
This has me baffled, there are no preference settings to even change the default storage location (or I couldn't find them) Looking at com.apple.addressbook.plist has no storage folder either.
Any ideas on how this can be corrected? Or even how it happened?
Little more information. This is my primary user account which has FileVault turned on and also syncs with dotmac to my MacBook. The sync works fine by the way, but those contacts should be within the secure volume.
My only thought for a fix would be to back up my user folder (data only, no settings). Delete the account. And then recreate the account and restore my data, but I'd rather not do that if I don't have to, I'm hoping for the quick and simple fix.
What do yo think?

Replying to my own post.
I think I've fixed my problem by simply disconnecting the external drive. With the drive disconnected, Address Book came up empty again. So I restored from my backup and checked that the files updated in the correct (home) folder.
<user>/Library/Application Support/Address Book/
Still haven't any clue as to how my contacts suddenly started saving themselves on my external drive to begin with.

Similar Messages

My address book contacts keep disappearing and I haven't upgraded only updated. Any ideas?

My address book contacts disappear from the address book application, but when I check the library the files seem to be there. If I click on one of the files that should contain contact info, they are blank. I've restored the files twice from my time capsule and it works for awhile and then suddenly they seem to be missing again. I haven't upgraded to OS X, so the online support on address book does not help. I've only been maintaining the automatic updates. Any thoughts on my magically disappearing contacts? It makes synching my ipod a dangerous act.

ymcneil - thanks for the work around. But isn't it amazing Apple forces us to do this to maintain our privacy.
I live in Australia where there are good privacy laws protecting citizens. I do not want to be forced to use iCloud when the data sits in the USA with weaker privacy laws and also able to be seen by the US Government under the Patriot Act. Further I suspect Apple will interrogate my contacts and calendar for commercial purposes and I do not want that either.
I chose to synch my calendar and contacts with my iphone and ipad. I have relied for years on carrying around my phone with my diary on it. I can no longer do that.
Whoever made this decision at Apple has to be someone who knows little about the world. I can actually see EU regulators getting very annoyed by this.
I too woud like the itunes mac to iphone/ipad local backup given back.
In the meantime - thanks for the work around

My Address Book contacts disappeared twice. Where do they go?

My Address Book contacts have disappeared twice; moreover, I can't seem to find them on Time Machine so that I can restore them. Is anyone else having this problem, and 1. how do I get my contacts back, and 2. how do I prevent this happening again?

Hi, open these Folders...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/
List what all is in them please & sizes.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.

Address book contacts disappeared yesterday out of nowhere... how do I -

Hi,
Address book contacts disappeared yesterday out of nowhere... on my new MacBook Pro Core Duo. How do I re-import contacts from a "Carbon Copy" of my old MacBook G4 address book? I have a perfect copy of my Hard Drive on an External Hard Drive. However, I didn't set up my new MacBook Pro - and can't believe all my contacts just disappeared yesterday...
Suggestions? Step by Step instructions?
Thanks in advance...!

You’re welcome.
All you have to do is copy those files & folders from the backup to the location where they should be, replacing any files with the same name that may currently be there. Your home folder is /Users/username/. And you must first quit any applications that may access those files.
Things are more involved if you do any kind of synchronization, though. Actually that could be the reason your contacts disappeared in the first place. In that case, the procedure would be as follows:
1. If you have a .Mac account and .Mac synchronization of Address Book data is enabled either in Address Book > Preferences > General or in System Preferences > .Mac, disable it before proceeding.
2. You may also need to reset the entire sync history (iSync > Preferences > Reset Sync History) to avoid synchronization issues if you use .Mac or iSync to synchronize your Address Book with other computers or devices.
3. Quit Address Book, Mail, and any other applications that might use Address Book for something. Or just quit all applications to be on the safe side.
4. In the Finder, copy the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist preferences file and the ~/Library/Application Support/AddresBook folder from the backup to the corresponding location within your home folder, replacing the files with the same name currently there. Alternatively, to avoid accidentally overwriting any files, you may first move to the Desktop the files that should be replaced and trash them after checking that everything is OK.
5. If your data has been successfully restored and .Mac synchronization of Address Book data was enabled at the beginning, enable it again, go to System Preferences > .Mac > Advanced, click Reset Sync Data, and choose the appropriate options to reset the Address Book data stored on the .Mac server with the data locally stored on the computer, i.e. sync data must flow from the computer to the .Mac server.

Why have my Address Book contacts disappeared after uploading to iCloud?

I am using my MacBook Pro w/OSX Lion.
After having many, many problems with contacts, calendars and bookmarks in MobileMe, migrating to iCloud, encountering a huge mess of duplicates and even completely missing contacts I decided to start over. So I disabled the iCloud account on all Macs and IOS devices. I then ensured all contacts, calendars and bookmarks were deleted from the MacBook Pro. I then used the Address Book export I'd made just prior to the migration from Mobile Me to iCloud and imported this onto my MacBook Pro. I've completely gone though the Address Book and removed or merged duplicates and cleaned up all contacts with detail. I backed up my Address Book again at this point. I then logged into iCloud.com using my original Apple User ID (NOT the MobileMe/me.com account which I'm going to vacate) and ensured that there were no contacts in the cloud and I deselected the default calendars here as well. My intention was/is to begin by starting small and deal only with the MacBook Pro Address Book and iCloud Contacts. So after I confirmed there is no data in the cloud I go into the MacBook Pro System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details ensuring I was signed out of the me.com user and entered my original Apple ID I've had since I started using iTunes many years back. I quit the browser and the Address Book and verified the non me.com user was saved under the System Preferences. I then selected Contacts under these iCloud System Preferences and I was asked If I wanted to merge my contacts with those in the cloud. Because there were no contacts in the cloud I selected yes. The spinning indicator indicated that the upload was occurring. Now, there are no contacts in the cloud and the Address Book contacts are missing. Thinking that my doing the Address Book backup may have removed all the data from the Address Book, I deselected Contacts in the iCloud System Preferences, reimported the backup into Address Book that I'd just done, confirmed the contacts I just imported appear in Address Book and I reselect Contacts in the iCloud System Preferences and again I get the spinning indicator. Again, there are no Contacts in the cloud and the contacts are missing from Address Book.
What the heck am I doing wrong? I've simplified my original attempt with iCloud by concentrating my efforts to just contacts AND I'm only using the MacBook and the iCloud cloud and I've still got problems. I thought this approach would narrow down where the issue lies and allow me to monitor the process more easily but I seem to be worse off than before I'd tried to resolve the initial migration problems because now I have no contacts.
I'm new to Macs so if you have a solution, please help and please give specifics because I'm still learning the structure and don't understand a lot of the acronyms and jargon.
Thanx

If you have a back up file, I'd try turning off iCloud contact syncing on all macs from system preferences > iCloud –
DONE
as well as any secondary accounts from system preferences > mail, contacts and calendars –
DONE (this was confusing but I figured out that you meant System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendars which is what you said in lowercase. For some reason without the capital letters I didn't clue in that Mail, Contacts and Calendars was an icon option under the System preferences and so I overlooked it multiple times. I see your use of "secondary account" which I note used also as a term in the User Tip link you referred me to view. Although, I still don't understand what this 'secondary' account is, I'm not interested in any secondary accounts because I've got my hands full with just iCloud for now. I did delete all accounts under the Mail, Contacts & Calendars).
If you have any iOS devices I'd do the same on those as well. –
DONE (not even introducing other Macs or IOS devices to the equation until I get the iCloud and MacBook syncing contacts correctly)
I'd log into iCloud.com and check my Address Book was empty and empty it if necessary –
DONE (it was empty already)
and then delete all contacts from every Address Book on every device
         DONE
Then I'd turn Address Book syncing back on –
DONE (This assuming that by ‘turn back on’ you mean System Preferences > iCloud and check marking the box next to Contacts)
and import my contacts from the backup file –
DONE (This assuming that by ‘import my contacts’ you mean importing the previously exported Address Book back up file back into the Address Book. I see contacts listed in the Address Book when I did this.)
No syncing seems to happen at this point?
you might also take a look at this User Tip, to ensure you understand the differences between the different accounts in Address Book before adding the contacts back.
         I did read this but understand is probably not an accurate term for my interpretation of what I read. I get that On My Mac will not sync with what is in the cloud and iCloud will sync with the cloud. In Address Book under the single head red ribbon I see neither account heading that is mentioned. I also was not asked at the time of import to select which ‘account’ I’d like the contacts setup under.
A) If there is no indication as to what Address Book account the contacts fall under, how does on find this out?
User Tips states
Your Address Book when synced with iCloud will have more than one account.
     My assumption is that I'm not synced with iCloud if I don't see either account option listed. I also would think that if I'm not synced and thus don't have more than one account then perhaps the All Contacts default to an On My Mac account but don't reflect an account heading of 'On My Mac’ as seen on the screen shot of the User Tips example.
Furthermore, User Tips also states
Default Account
Your 'default'account is set in address book preferences > general (the option is only displayed if you have more than one account).
         It would seem relevant to list which account your defaulted to even if you do not have more than one account because elsewise how are you supposed to know which account it is setup under?
B) How do you change which ‘account’ your contacts are setup under if they are under the wrong account?
         Assuming again that my contacts are ‘On My Mac’, then how do I move them to the ‘iCloud’ account of which is not listed?
C) Will any of this be affected by groups?
The five listings under All Contacts are groups that I set up as a sort of invitation list (so Christmas cards is one I’d probably setup this time of year). Although this question is secondary I would like to confirm that my interpretation of groups is accurate. I understand groups to be a sort of tagging of selected contacts from All Contacts but that the contacts in these groups are not duplicates to those in All Contacts. Is this correct? I ask because the User Tips states
To quickly duplicate a contact, drag it to your desktop, navigate to 'Groups', select the account you wish to duplicate to, double click the contact on your desktop.
            When reading this tip, I interpret that dragging and dropping contacts from All Contacts into a group would be similar to what is suggested in this tip which would indeed ‘duplicate’ the contact. I did drag and drop when I setup my groups so I’m concerned I duplicated the contacts in Address Book. I do not see two copies of the same contact under All Contacts though.
By the way, don't take it personally –
I don't, I have reading difficulties galore and am happy to accommodate if I can. I hope this is better. Helping you helps me if you're not struggling to read when thinking about the solution.
Thanx

Address Book Contacts are Gone

This is a really odd problem that has been going on for sometime now. It first started when I was running Tiger and the problem continues now even with Leopard. The problem is that periodically without warning, all of the contacts in my address book mysteriously disappear - I mean they are gone - deleted. At first, I thought this was an issue with .Mac syncing as I had it set to sync automatically every hour. I have disabled .Mac sync and now only sync manually so I know that it is not an issue with .Mac sync.
Earlier today I checked on my computer and everything was good, all of the contacts were in place. I put in my iPhone and hit sync and left the room. I know for a fact that my iPhone had all my contacts and I know that Address Book had all my contacts. When I came back to the computer a few hours later, Address Book is completely empty - the iPhone has lost all of it's contacts. I logged into .Mac on the internet and all of my contacts are still there. My last sync to .Mac was last night at 7:30. Back when I had .Mac sync set to automatic syncing, it was not uncommon for me to come in and find that all of my contacts would be gone in Address Book and on .Mac as well. I've tried contacting Apple about it and I never received any kind of a response.
Of course I can easily recover everything with my Time Machine backups, but this is perplexing me greatly. How in the heck can this be happening? Is anyone else experiencing anything like this? This is starting to drive me crazy as I cannot figure out how the Address Book is mysteriously losing contacts unless it is happening during the sync process with the iPhone. I would certainly love to hear any suggestions on how to remedy this issue as this is extremely annoying. Thank you.

OK, now I am worried and ticked off! I still dont have my contacts back in place...after spending now over 3 hours with three different apple experts. Where my address book contacts went to no one knows. No "experts" at Apple Care or at the local retail store "Genius Bar" seem to have any answers that are working! Even my .mac backup is not working when I try to "restore" my data from several backup dates before when my contacts vanished suddenly.
I have written several emails today to the .Mac support (Unfortunately only available via e-mail.... I had an apple care rep tell me that .Mac is not really Apple, but an outside firm that runs .Mac).
Here is my last email to .Mac support that I just sent out:
<<Apple and .Mac engineers out there: PLEASE help us. There is a bad bug going around where our contacts are being vaporized and making many of us go crazy. Help us get out of this twilight zone of losing all our contact data!!!!
Read all about it from many upset users at:
<a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6939388#69393 88
Then call me at (my phone number) so I can tell you whats going on with my case and HELP me get my info back! I have sent several other emails to you here today.
Thanks!
Marcel Howard D.>>
I hope this gets us all some help from the Apple Engineers and customer service.
1. What are the common details, including any error messages, related to our problems that we are discussing on this thread?

Iphone sync and 300 lost address book contacts

Help. I'm sick about this. Everything has been going fine with my iphone until tonight. After I synced tonight, all 300 of my address book contacts disappeared on my phone AND on my computer. Even my backup hard drive doesn't show any contact information, only an address book icon which has no information when opened. Apple iphone tech support was unable to help me. Please I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight because of this. Can anyone out there help me get my contact information back?
Thank you.
Alden Burlington

Joel,
The Backup application they are referring to is the Backup application that comes with .Mac.
It does incremental backups. It doesn't replace the previous days backup. You can go to your backup location, and choose the day you want to restore from.
There is even a preconfigured plan for personal data and settings daily to iDisk that backs up iCal, Address Book, etc.
I would also recomend going into iSync's preferences and setting it to prompt you if more than 5% of your contacts or data will be changed. This is the default for iSync, but can be changed to not warn, or only warn when 25%, 50%, etc will be changed. If it is on the default you will get a message if information will be lost.
Also in some situations, reseting sync history before another sync, and then syncing again, may bring back some of the contacts.
Hope this helps,
Nathan C.

Address Book contacts vanished - help!

I'm hyperventilating....my entire Address Book contact list has disappeared, four years' worth of critical info! I'm hoping someone can help me find/recover the data on my iMac.
Background: Last night, some of the apps on my iMac froze for an unknown reason. I was using Safari, left for a bit, came back and all of the Mac apps - Address Book, Mail, iCal, etc. had stopped responding. I Force Quit out of them, and rebooted my Mac. Mail and iCal were fine, all data still there.
Didn't use Address Book until just now - I opened it and it's empty - just the default 'new' data file that has my basic card and the Apple card. EEEKKK! I have years of irreplacable data in that missing file. What happened? I've never had such a problem in the 3 years I've had this Mac and system. Someone help ASAP, please! I have no addresses to send mail, no key business data or anything!
The Address Book app is still there, and the data folder has these files: ABPerson.skIndexInverted (292 kb, yesterday 9:51 pm), ABSubscribedPerson.skIndexInverted (8 kb), AddressBook.data (32 kb, today, 12:32 pm), AddressBook.data.previous (yesterday 9:53 pm), plus Images folder.
Thanks in advance if you can save my sanity and data.
Abby

Well, if it's not being found thwn it's likely some kind of Disk corruption, the files may or may not still exist, but if the OS or other APPs can't find them then it's very likly the space those files use has been freed for use in writing to the Disk, which OSX does far too often.
a virus or something?
Not likely a virus.
And, what am I supposed to do next if I do recover from another computer (all I have is a PC laptop...)?
Cannot be done from a PC, sorry.
Am I just looking to find the Address Book file?
Yes, mostly.
more panicked than before....
Very sorry to be the messenger here, but if that stuff is important to recover, I've given you my best advice... You need another Mac, or another HD to install to, boot from, try to recover to.
If I can or need to explain it better/clearer please let me know.

Recover Address Book Contacts

All my Address Book Contacts have disappeared (0 Cards), and I don't know why. When I attempted to recover them by syncing with the contacts stored on an iPad, the result is that all the iPad's contacts were deleted, too (the most recently accessed card briefly appeared, but then vanished along with all the other cards). Can I recover the Contacts from a Time Machine backup, and if so, how do I do that?

Yes you can recover all your contacts from Time Machine. Just restore Address Book from a time when you know the contacts were there. Also you have a misunderstanding about syncing your iPad (or any other IOS device), the computer sycs data such as contacts, music etc with the device, the device DOES NOT sync with the computer. So if you lose music or contacts from the computer you cannot restore them from the iPod. That is why you backup the computer it's to safeguard your data.

Problems with outlook and address book contacts: my outlook contacts had around 3,000 entries. Outlook duplicated by itself and now outlook and address book have each over 340,000. What should I do?

Problems with outlook and address book contacts: my outlook contacts had around 3,000 entries. Outlook duplicated entries and have now 340,000. I reinstalled microsoft office and, thus, outlook, and reinstalled mac OS X system and applications. While I managed to delete outlook contacts so that I can re-sync with my blackberry, the contacts at Mac Address Book were not deleted and still have over 340,000 entries. I do not mind deleting all contacts since I have back up, but I have not been able to delete them. Also, when I go at Address Book and try to delete or merge duplicated entries, the system takes forever and never ends because of such large amount of entries. Worse, when I do so I run out of RAM memory.
My Macbook pro is just 2 months old.
What should I do? Is there a way to delete my Mac Address Book without having the problem above?
Many thanks
Regis

zlatan24 wrote:
For solving out troubles connected with corrupted or lost address book you may use address book recovery. It owns various features such as restoring wab files, it working under any Windows OS. The utility has modern and easy to use interface due to almost every experienced users.
If it is a windows problem it's not going to run on the OP's MacBook Pro

How do I sync my address book contacts on my iphone and clear all other contacts on my phone (issue with icloud?)

When I purchased my iphone 4S, I had all my old phone's information transfer over to my new phone.
I organized my address book on my mac powerbook and then hoped to sync my computer's address book to my phone - in hopes of erasing all the junky contacts on my iphone and only having the my address book contacts on my phone.
I did all I could trying to make this happen (through iTunes) but it hasn't erased/replaced all of the contacts on my phone - I believe since my phone is synced to icloud. So I'm stuck with a very unorgaized contacts list on my phone...
How can I make it so I only have the contacts from my address book on my phone?
Thanks in advance,
Suzanne

Also, I just noticed that syncing my phone effected my calendar in that all my events now repeat. So instead of having one event schedule on a day, I have two of the same events scheduled for the same time.
It seems as if I can't sync my phone to my computer through iTunes and iCloud.
Help???
Suzanne

Number of address book contacts on MacBook Air using iCloud is one less than my other iDevices using iCloud. Is this a known bug?

Number of address book contacts on MacBook Air using iCloud is one less than my other iDevices using iCloud. Is this a known bug? I've checked for duplicates on my iDevices and I can't find any. Additionally, I have wiped all the data from the Application Support folder of the address book and re-connected to iCloud, but it always shows 308 contacts instead of 309 found on iCloud and the rest of my devices. Any ideas?

Number of address book contacts on MacBook Air using iCloud is one less than my other iDevices using iCloud. Is this a known bug? I've checked for duplicates on my iDevices and I can't find any. Additionally, I have wiped all the data from the Application Support folder of the address book and re-connected to iCloud, but it always shows 308 contacts instead of 309 found on iCloud and the rest of my devices. Any ideas?

Mac OS 10.4 Address Book Contacts

Niether the Palm Data Transfer Agent nor the MissingSync program work under Mac OS 10.4, and I do not want to pay for 10.5 when 10.6 is coming out in September. Here is how I have found to copy all of my Address Book contacts to the Pre. It requires you to have a gmail account.
1) In Address Book, select all the contacts you want to export. You can select multiple contacts by shift-click or command-clicking. For example, to get all of your contacts click on the first one, then scroll to the last one and shift click on it. All of your contacts will be highlighted.
2) From the File menu, choose Export vCard..., enter of filename (or leave it as the devault "vCards"), note the directory where the vcards will be saved, and click the Save button.
3) Go to your gmail account using your favorite browser.
4) Click on the Contacts link (on the left side of the screen).
5) In the upper right hand corner of the contacts box, click on Import.
6) Browse to find the file of vCards you saved, and click on the import button.
At this point all of your contacts will be loaded into gmail. If you have already sync'ed your Pre with gmail, then your contacts should automatically update. Otherwise, follow the instructions for sync'ing with gmail.
While this procedure will copy all of your data over to the phone, it is not a real sync in that if you make changes either on the phone or in Address Book, you will have to manually push the changes over. I'll probably get MissingSync when I upgrade to a more recent version of OS X, but it would be nice if the Pre came with this functionality built-in...
Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

Does anyone have a solution for converting Palm Contacts? I'm happy to buy software to make this happen. I have 2500+ contacts and use many of the fields (and would like to keep them). I am on a mac and use a droid phone (Samsung Intercept). Sprint says that they can convert the contacts, but that they will then only be on my phone. I need to be able to update on my computer and have that sync with my phone.
thank you!

Trying to link Address Book Contacts with Outlook 2011 - iSync??

Hi There,
Would be grateful for some assistance.
I've got all my contacts and other things in iCloud - wonderful!
I've managed to get all my contacts from iCloud to show up in Address book.
I want to sync my address book contacts in Outlook 2011 - after three days of trying I'm still stuck.
I've checked the Syncing set up in Outlook, that appears to be correct.
I've checked addressbook, and other than having two folders one entitles iCloud (which has everything I need in it) and one entitled On my Mac, which has a couple of testers in it but nothing else, everything else seems fine.
I've checked that iCloud is synching into the iCloud folder in Address Book by putting some stuff on my iPhone and seeing it got pushed from the iCloud to my MacBook - all working fine there.
I have read lots of forum posts and keep seeing references to iSync, and how its on all Mac's but then I see people saying that its not on with Lion - I'm running Lion, and I can't find iSync...so this would seem to be true.
Can anyone tell me how I might achieve this sync process - I would much rather be using an integrated programme like Outlook...any thoughts

Enthusiast: I just got back from the Apple Store. This is the solution they suggested and seems to work. We got rid of iCloud contacts. We just set up Yahoo account in the "mail, contacts, calendars" of the iPhone. Under the "contacts" section we have the "default Account" set to Yahoo. When any additions/delete/mods happen then it is updated on Yahoo.
On the MacBook we deleted the "on My Computer" and deleted "iCloud" and then added the Yahoo account for synching. This is basically used as a secondary backup for the yahoo contact and used if using the computer. It is not necessary to use the computer for any of this.
I've been having lots of problems with Yahoo contacts. I had previously pulled in facebook contacts. This was NOT a good idea. I cleaned up my contacts, exported them out to CSV. Scrubbed some more. Imported them to a new yahoo account. Then deleted all contacts from my main Yahoo, permanently deleting them. Then imported my contacts. I did lose all my "lists" settings. That was a small price to pay.
Now iPhone, iPad and MacBook address book and Yahoo are all in sync.
I was shown at the store is to refresh the Yahoo webpage (CTRL R) and then refresh the contacts on the iPhone. There is a slight delay in update. iCloud is faster at it. But its best to avoid iCloud if you are using Yahoo contacts. Also avoid Facebook contacts. If you really want to use the Facebook feature, I would do it on a different account and then bring in the contacts that you want through an import.
I was having problems with Yahoo contacts and it might be that it was being flaky or they were experiencing problems ... because all of a sudden it started working again. I've seen similar problems with Yahoo Calendar.

Address Book contacts not showing up in Mail

I'm unable to access my address book contacts from Mail. The wheel on the right side of the recipient box spins but never finds the contact or group I'm searching. Can anyone help?

Please follow these directions to delete the Mail "sandbox" folder.
Back up all data.
Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder named "com.apple.mail" selected. If it does, move the selected folder — not just its contents — to the Desktop. Leave the Finder window open for now.
Log out and log back in. Launch Mail and test. If the problem is resolved, you may have to recreate some of your Mail settings. You can then delete the folder you moved and close the Finder window. If you still have the problem, quit Mail again and put the folder back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place. Post your results.
Caution: If you change any of the contents of the sandbox, but leave the folder itself in place, Mail may crash or not launch at all. Deleting the whole sandbox will cause it to be rebuilt automatically.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Disappearing Address Book Contacts

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