Sync Subset of Address Book Contacts with iPhone?

Is there a way to limit the contacts in Address Book which are sync'd with the iPhone? My copy of Address Book has many contacts which are from long ago. I like to keep them around for the occasion I need to reach someone. But, I don't need them cluttering up the list of people I need to reach promptly in my iPhone.
Thanks!

The simplest way to do that would be to create a group in Contacts that has just the ones you want and only sync that group to your iPhone.

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Syncing Address Book contacts with iPod

I know some people will think this post should be in the iPod forum but I have realised that it is not my iPod beccasue I tried using a different iPod and the same problem happened. Anyway...the problem is that when I choose to sync Address Book contacts with iPod it comes up with this message:
No contacts available
Contact syncinig cannot be enabled because there are no contacts available. Do you want to open Address Book and create contacts now?
And gives me the options: Cancel and Open Address Book
I have tried deleting several different preferences for iTunes, Address Book and iSync (just incase).
I don't know what else to do, I know I can manually add my contacts by exporting them all as a vCard but it would be so much easier if iTunes could do it. Please help if you know anything!
iMac G5 (iSight) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.9GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB RAM, 17" Widescreen
iMac G5 (iSight) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.9GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB RAM, 17" Widescreen

I've got Calenders syncing again, not sure how I did it. I deleted the one of the folders in /Users/Alex/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/clientdata/
I found that in each folder there is a clientname.txt file with the name of what data is in the folder e.g. iCal, Safari, Keychain, Mail.
I deleted the iCal one and iTunes seems to be syncing it now. So I looked for a folder with Address Book in the clientname.txt file but there wasn't one. I am wondering whether that's the reason!

Sync first erased Address Book contacts, then erased my new iPhone contacts

I had to take my Mac Mini into service today ($50) to get my Address Book contacts restored after the first sync with my new iPhone. There was no prompt, no warning, no merge / replace option that the iPhone Help says would happen:
Step 3: Sync iPhone
Click Apply in the lower-right corner of the screen. iPhone and your computer sync according to your settings.
The first time you sync with a service, you are asked if you want to merge data, replace data on the service, or replace the data on your computer.
That expected prompt did not happen ... the sync started on its own as soon as I put the iPhone in the dock.
After I brought the Mac Mini home from service -- after making a backup CD of the contacts now restored in my Address Book -- I redocked the iPhone and stopped the sync with the slider. Then I hunted down the sync options in the Info tab in iTunes. Still no option to merge or replace that I could find. I carefully pressed Apply after I'd selected the sync options I wanted.
I still didn't get the expected prompt mentioned above.
It synched, but now all the few newly typed contact phone #s I'd put in the iPhone are gone! Not merged, not added, gone.
I searched the forums but could not find a topic addressing this.
mac mini Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Not sure why syncing failed but you can do the following: download the free app My Contacts Backup and use it on your phone. It will back up your contacts as an attachment to an email. Send the email to yourself and open it on your mac. Double-click the attachment and your mac should import the contacts into Address Book.

Address book oddities with iPhone 4S, Lion & MacBook?

Maybe this is an iPhone issue, but: Have any of you been having problems with losing addresses out of Address book both on the latest versions of Lion, MacBooks and iPhones? I've been very successfully using an iPhone 3 and earlier versions of the OS, but when I upgraded to both a new 4S and MacBook i7, I've been plagued with address book entries showing up fine on the Macbook Pro but not on the iPhone after a sync. I'm NOT using iCloud yet, but this has become frequent and frustrating. I've even tried overwriting during Sync my entire iPhone address book with the one from my laptop, but I still can't get some of my contacts to show up on the iPhone. For example, all my family members with the same name as I am, do not show up on the phone after syncing with the laptop, where I can see them fine. It's very frustrating. After the latest sync, all my 'favorites' on the iPhone have vanished.
I see that others have had this problem in the past with MobileMe. But I'm not using either that or iCloud. iCloud is only being used for 'Find my iPhone". Nothing else.
Any suggestions? Or do you need more info?

Just an update, I reset my phone to factory defaults, reloaded everything, and the problem still continues, albeit with less entries vanishing. Also, I still have no problems on my Macbook that this is syncing to. So is anyone else experiencing lost address book entries on iPhone 4S?

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/Google/iPhone Sync = Tons of Duplicates?

Hi, folks - I'm syncing my contacts with Google, using the following:
1. iPhone: Google Sync for Calendars & Contacts using Microsoft Exchange
2. Macbook: Address Book also syncing to Google under Preferences.
This setup is creating tons of duplicate contacts each day. It's usually the same handful of contacts that get duplicated dozens and dozens of times throughout the day, bloating my few hundred contacts into thousands of entries.
I'm guessing that the set-up below is creating some kind of infinite loop for certain items, and doubles them every time it tries to sync. But I can't find any common characteristics for the items that keep duplicating.
I'm sure the easiest fix would be to turn off option 2, and stop trying to keep my Macbook's local contact list in sync. But that's my way of "backing up" incase my Google account ever gets hosed for any reason.
Does anybody know:
1. How I can fix my set-up above to stop the dupe-loop, OR
2. How to troubleshoot each contact that's duping, fix fields/data etc OR
3. A better way to auto-backup Google so I don't have to use Option 2 at all?
Thanks!
Michael

Have the same problem.
Today, as usual did a sync and was very pleased to find that almost all my contacts on IPhone were duplicated. Weird, not all of them.
The problem is that I have to double check every contact, because the duplication was a bit...weird also. Not all duplicates are the same. One might contain all info about a contact and another one might have only one phone number.
So, this is a BIG problem.
I tried deleting all contacts from my Outlook database and sync.
Oh, the joy of having all your IPhone contacts DELETED without even a warning.
Restored a backup and got all my Contacts back, duplicated of course.
Believe me, I am DEAD AFRAID of using ITunes again. Maybe for the ones that did the programing of it might have some logic, but for me, as well as for many Apple customers with the same problem (and more) I think NOT.
This piece of software must have been written on some crazy after party weekend, because I cannot understand how such a big name like Apple can release such a badly written application.
Do we have an alternative to ITunes?
I am using it for backing up my contacts, because I tend to loose my phone all the time
I would use it for purchasing some interesting software from the store, but, most of the software I like...are not in my country's store :)) (Google Earth, The Discovery software, etc). Way to go!
I do remember Nokia and their little application. So easy to do anything. Apple, weak up!!!
Message was edited by: Inteq

How to sync a subset of Address Book contacts only

Is anyone able to tell me how to achieve a complete two-way syncing between my phone contacts and a group (subset) of contacts in my Mac's Address Book?!
I have in my computer's address book two sets of contacts:
1) contacts I want to be mirrored in my phone contacts
2) contacts I want to keep in my computer, but NOT in my phone
For this reason, I created a specific group called "mobile" in my Mac's address book. When syncing with my phone using iSync, I would have a full synchronization between this "mobile" group and my phone contacts.
I have carefully selected this specific group (instead of "all contacts") in iSync preferences for syncing my phone, but there is a problem:
when iSync detects new contacts I added in "mobile" group, these contacts are copied into my phone correctly
BUT
new contacts added in the phone are recognized and copied into my Mac's address book WITHOUT being inserted into "mobile" group!!!
This means that every time new contacts are copied from my phone to my computer, I have to move (better saying "mark") these new contacts to the "mobile" group manually, because they are synced but added OUTSIDE the group.
This is really annoying and would make me lose contacts easily from my mobile phone in case of a restore of my phone contacts after resetting or changing the phone (all contacts would be maintained in my computer's generic address book, but not transferred back to my phone).

new contacts added in the phone are recognized and copied into my Mac's address book WITHOUT being inserted into "mobile" group!!!
Although annoying, that is how iSync works, and always has done.
New contacts added on the phone are not put in the selected group for syncing.
In the options for your phone in iSync, you'll notice that whereas there is a "Put events created on phone into: {calendar pop-up}", there is no equivalent "Put contacts created on phone into: {group pop-up}".
This has always been the case, and despite reporting it to Apple many times, it seems to be something they don't want to fix.

Phone Sync w/subset of Address Book Contacts?

Hi-
I have roughly 1500 contacts in Address Book. Is there any way to Sync only a subset - ideally a Smart Group? The window in iSync says All Contacts, but is a drop window, indicating other possibilities.
What am I missing?
iMac g4 800 Mac OS X (10.4.4) Moto E815

I have exactly the same need: to sync a small subset of my large address book with my phone. Only manually created Address Book groups appear as syncable groups in iSync - my carefully crafted Smart Groups don't show up, even after restarts, clean Address Book imports, etc.
Is this a bug? A missing feature? Or desired behavior?
(BTW, did you mean "Smart Groups" when you wrote "Smart Folders"?)
15 ALU PB 1.25GHZ FW800 Mac OS X (10.3.8)

How do I share Address Book/Contacts with my partner's account? We already figured out how to share Calendars

I am in the process of setting up separate icloud accounts for my husband and me (whereas we previously shared one). We both want read/write access to a single address book across all devices (desktop, laptop, ipad, two iphones), which we've been able to do for Calendars - why not for Contacts???

The same sharing facility that you have for calendars does not exist for contacts. What you could do is create a second ("secondary") iCloud account on one of devices by going to Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>iCloud and signing in with a different ID and turn Contacts on in the secondary account. Then add the secondary account to the other iOS devices and your Mac (by going to System Preferences>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>iCloud). This will give you a merged listed of contacts in the secondary account on your devices while keeping other data separated in the primary account.

Address book contacts on iPhone , not changing???

Please help! On the new iphone it is difficult to get people's phone numbers, so I rearranged all of my contact information into nice, streamlined groups. The problem is the contacts on my iphone (and I've restored it), stay the same as before. I want the new contact groups to be displayed and nothing more.
Any tips would be appreciated.

If you want your address book from your computer to update your iPhone's address book after initial download from activation you have to go into the iTunes with the iPhone connected. Click on the iPhone in the left hand menu and go to the tab that about the contacts. Go to the advanced settings. There should be a box to check that says something about using the computer's address book for update. I think that the default otherwise is to use changes to your phone's address book to update the computer's address book. I hope that helps.

Synch address book contacts with dotmac on 10.5.2 Leopard

When I check contacts synch settings in dotmac it confirms last synch was at 20.21. But when I check a listing of contacts in the dotmac address book it says that the last synch was at 06:29pm (no time zone). I found that many of my contacts listings lack the email addresses although they have other dat that are present in my Address Book. I have read that there may be a delay in updating synched data on dotmac but the delay is now more than an hour. Is this a problem with the dotmac server?

I have been synching from system preferences. There was an initial problem caused by having email addresses listed under "Other" rather than Home or Work. Dotmac doesnt have accommodation for "Other" email addresses so these weren't being synched. However, when these had been edited to conform with these dotmac limitations, the email addresses still didn't appear after synch.
I think there is some more basic problem here.

Syncing Mac Address Book to multiple iPhone users?

After updating my iMac to Mavericks I'm unable to sync my Address Book contacts to iPhones via USB sync.
Our usage model is that we have one set of Address Book contacts on a Mac for everyone at home (easier to maintain) and then we create unique Address Groups for each family member. In the past we used the Info tab in iTunes to specify which address group should sync with which iPhone. It worked well.
With the update to Mavericks the Info tab is gone. Apple wants users to sync their contacts via iCloud.
Security concerns notwithstanding, I don't know how to do it. How can a family of iPhone users, each with a different Apple and iCloud ID, sync to the same Address Book?
Thanks

Thank you to Gemariah for the suggestion that I should seek to import Contact details via Yahoo but to be honest whilst that may be indeed a valid work-around it is nothing if not clunky.
I have discovered that the PocketMac software is nothing to do with RIM although it is directly linked off their web-page: PocketMac do not appear to offer any real support and conversation with my network provider [ Vodaphone ] suggests that they regard the PocketMac software as little short of useless and a major source of problems.
Certainly in my experience, it is useless: it has duplicated some entries and will not allow the additional entries to be deleted. Clearly one can only hope that the RIM software which they are advertising for release in September will solve the problem but given that there is no way in which one can talk directly to RIM other than via a chargeable conversation I wonder whatb the chances are of their version being any better. I just wish that I could treat my clients in such an arrogant manner and still make money!
I would suggest that unless you want to spend time beating your head against a brick wall, do not use PocketMac software. It is a rubbish product, with support to match.

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

Can I sync my iMa address book with contacts on my iPhone?

Can I sync my iMac address book with my iPhone?

absolutely.http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf

New/Updated contacts on iPhone 4 not syncing to iMac Address Book

Greetings,
My problem:
When syncing my iPhone 4 with iTunes 10, iTunes will sync contacts FROM my iMac to the iPhone. It will not sync new or changed contacts from the iPhone TO my iMac (no two-way syncing).
Further background:
I recently had Apple replace my hard drive and restored from a Time Machine backup. Everything is working properly except this.
What I'm using:
* iPhone 4 w/ iOS 4.1 (latest)
* iMac 2.4 GHz Intel running OS X 10.5.8
* iTunes 10.1 (54)
Example:
If I create a new contact on my iMac, it syncs with the iPhone as expected.
On the iPhone, If I edit the contact originally created on the iMac and re-sync, the changes do NOT sync back to my iMac.
If I create a new contact on my iPhone, it does not sync with Address Book.
What I've tried so far that has not worked:
1.) Unchecked and re-checked "Sync Address Book Contacts" in iTunes (one-way syncing works fine)
2.) Used the "Replace information on this iPhone" for Contacts within iTunes (contacts from iMac overwrite iPhone as expected)
3.) I had a trial MobileMe subscription that I cancelled months ago.
Went into the iPhone > Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > deleted the MobileMe account, keeping existing data on my iPhone.
4.) Unchecked "Sync Address Book Contacts"
* Went to /users/[username]/Library/Application Support/AddressBook, deleted AddressBook-v22.abcddb and /Images
* Went to iSync app > Preferences > Reset Sync History
* Verified new addressbook and /Images folder were created
* Re-checked "Sync Address Book Contacts"
* Performed another sync using iTunes
(One-way sync works fine)
5.) Deleted all Address Book entries
* Unchecked "Sync Address Book Contacts"
* Went to /users/[username]/Library/Application Support/AddressBook, deleted AddressBook-v22.abcddb and /Images
* Went to iSync app > Preferences > Reset Sync History
* Verified new addressbook and /Images folder were created
* Re-checked "Sync Address Book Contacts"
* Performed another sync using iTunes
Can anyone offer some suggestions? I have my address book backed up, but I'd really like to be able to perform a two-way sync from my iPhone to my iMac's Address Book.
Thanks,
Rob

No need for apologies! Yes, it was checked. Looks like I have solved the problem now and it was something very basic - in the preferences of Contacts on the iMac. Looks like it's all synced now. Thanks for replying!

Sync Subset of Address Book Contacts with iPhone?

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