Address book contacts GONE!!!-Please help me

Please help me as I don't know what's happened to my contacts. I was burning DVD's on an external drive and reading email when Mail crashed. Shortly after that I re-opened Mail and tried to send mail when nothing was coming up for addresses and I went into address book and everything is gone. I've read some posts but I cannot find TimeMachine and I do not have an address book archive option under file/import. I see Address Book in my Library but how do I get it to bring my contacts back? I do have a back-up from last month but I want to see if I can find this before I use that backup.
I am using a Powerbook G4 with 10.4.11 and Address book 4.06 and mail 2.12
Thanks.
Gina

This sometimes helps:
Quit Address Book.
In folder ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook drag file AddressBook.data to the desktop. Rename AddressBook.data.previous to AddressBook.data and restart AB. If your contacts are not back quit AB again and repeat the drag/rename process, this time with AddressBook.data.beforesave.
If you get your contacts back, now is probably a good time to use the AB menu item File/Back up Address Book.
AK

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Upgraded MacBook Pro 5,1 to Lion - Address Book/RAM Question - PLEASE HELP!

So, I upgraded to Lion. Flawless.
Except, when I was trying to set up iCloud, I had Address Book open and decided to select the "Look for Duplicates" function to try to clear some of the double entries in my Address Book.
The process took over an hour.
I had Fusion running.
After an hour, I got an error message that said I have run out of disk space. It prompted me to force quit some applications.
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What caused this? Is it serious? Any advice?
I am trying to run it again, but it is taking forever.
Please help!

I finally solved the problem by myself.
For anyone reading this thread and having similar issues, I quickly describe how I did it:
Basically, I changed totally nothing on either Soft- or Hardware side.
But what I did was disassemble my MBP, remove one of those 2 memory chips, un- and replugged the SSD, turned the system on with just one memory chip, let it run for a while (did some stress tests on the SSD that ususally lead to massive problems) and everything worked smooth.
At first I thought the one memory I removed was bad, but to my surprise the system continued to work stable after I put it in again.
Since 6 days my MBP runs smooth without any troubles like spinning wheels or whatsoever.
I've read many threads from other people having similiar issues with this configuration, coming up with a lot of ideas and workarounds.
Although this seems to be weird, I hope that it helps some of you facing the same weird behaviour.

Address book contacts gone!

A couple of days ago, I updated from Tiger to Snow Leopard. It went well, so I thought. Last night, I discovered that my address book had lost all of its contacts - the only one there was me. Is there a place that I can look for this file, in case this is just caused by a disconnect between the program and the file? what is the file called? I do have some folders in ~/library/application support/address book:
(ABPerson.skIndex
ABPerson.skIndexInverted
AddressBook-v22.abcddb
AddressBook.data
AddressBook.data.beforesave
AddressBook.data.previous
Configuration.plist
Images
MailRecents-v4.abcdmr
Metadata)
but none of them can be opened by the Address book app.
I have updated, first by software update, and then again via the combo update, to 10.6.1. I am running a Macbook Pro with 3 GB of RAM.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Nancy

Hi Nancy,
I do have some folders in ~/library/application support/address book:
This folder reflects the current state of your Address Book. If you check under the Metadata folder I expect you to find only one file, which is you. (You can use quick look to confirm that.) I believe that the only way to bring back your contacts might be from a Time Machine backup or from some other source if you synchronise them with your Address Book e.g. GMail or Yahoo contacts, iPhone or some similar device.

Hi I would like to uninstall then re-install Thunderbird. can I do this without losing my address book contacts?Please!

Thunderbird repeatedly ask for my email server password. Also it fails to download my incoming mail and "times out"

Uninstalling and re-installing won't change your profile, so your address book will stay intact. The bad side is that the problem with the timeout will probably also stay intact :-(

My Address Book Contacts Are Gone After Updating to SL 10.6 - Help!

I updated from Leopard to Snow Leopard and all my contacts in my address book are gone. How do I get them back? All my email is there, but it seems to have wiped out programs too.

Hi JCH4CHG;
Restore from the backup you took prior to the upgrade.
Allan

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?

POP3 Mail & Address Book contacts have gone!

I recently did some housekeeping on my Mum's iBook G4 (OSX 10.4.10), part of which was purchasing and installing SpamSieve into Mail. This all went fine. Today she said all the mail in her POP3 inbox had gone, she couldn't send/receive and all her address book contacts had gone (Except hers and Apples).
I've got the iBook now and have noticed that her account type in Mail has somehow changed to a .Mac account (did I somehow do this, or did she???). This is obviously the root of the problem as the
email address now has '@mac.com' appended to the end and the incoming mail server is now 'mail.mac.com' and the outgoing is 'smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress' which is all wrong. I'm unable to change the account type back to POP or the incoming mail server from 'mail.mac.com' (it's greyed out) back to what it was.
I have now created a second account with the correct POP settings and have received in all unread email, but the read email messages have gone. I am unable to send as the new correct pop account is only offered the incorrect outgoing server ('smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress').
Having read several post on this forum, I feel the Mail/Address Book issues are connected and that maybe the application(s) database(s) have been corrupted. I've tried the Address Book remedy at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5248351&#5248351 but this does nothing. The 'user'>Library>Mail folder shows the two accounts as two separate folders. The recently recreated account folder has the new unread messages in the 'INBOX.mbox folder, but the older account folder (which now has 'MAC-' added to the front of its name) only has 'info.plist' in a 'INBOX.imapmbox' folder!
I don't believe any back-ups are available. Can anyone help me restore her old unread mail, and possibly her address book contacts?
I've also just noticed that SpamSieve does not launch as it should when I launch Mail, even though It was purchased and the scripts installed correctly.

Didn’t you make a backup prior to the housekeeping?
I don’t know why would Spotlight find contacts that are gone from Address Book (if that’s what you mean), but as far as Mail goes, under some circumstances (e.g. lack of available disk space, filesystem corruption, repeated crashes), Mail may discard the current ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist preferences file and create a new one. This file is where all the account settings are stored. As a result, all the non-.Mac account settings (but not the messages themselves) are lost. If you had a .Mac account, its settings would appear to have been preserved because Mail would set up that account automatically using the System Preferences > .Mac settings.
What’s the capacity and space available on the startup disk? Take a look at the comments about disk space in the following article, in case they apply to you:
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what’s it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, and ensuring that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), quit Mail if it’s running, and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, just in case something else goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. This is where all your mail is stored.
You have three options now:
(1) Restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist from a backup if you have one. Mail shouldn’t be running while you do this.
(2) Set up your mail accounts again (you may want to quit Mail and trash the new com.apple.mail.plist first to start over). If given the option to import existing mailboxes or something like that, don’t. Just enter the account information and Mail will automagically rediscover the data in ~/Library/Mail/ when done. You’ll also have to re-configure most of your settings in Mail > Preferences. For spam-related security reasons, the first thing you should do is go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it’s enabled.
(3) Mail may have renamed the old preferences file to com.apple.mail.plist.saved. If that’s the case, you may try trashing the new com.apple.mail.plist and renaming the old com.apple.mail.plist.saved back to com.apple.mail.plist. Again, be sure Mail isn’t running while doing this. Given the circumstances, there exists the possibility that com.apple.mail.plist.saved became corrupt, but that often is not the case and the settings can usually be restored by just renaming the file back to com.apple.mail.plist.
As a side effect of re-creating com.apple.mail.plist, Mail might rename Outbox (which is where messages waiting to be sent are stored) to Delivered. The name of that mailbox is actually a misnomer, as it would contain messages (if any) that couldn’t be delivered for some reason. You can delete that mailbox if you wish.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.

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.

I am facing issue in Receiving incoming calls, Name not getting displayed though the same has been saved in my phone book!! I have done sync from Windows contacts.. please help if some1 knows how to rectify the issue...

I am facing issue in Receiving incoming calls, Name not getting displayed though the same has been saved in my phone book!! I have done sync from Windows contacts.. please help if some1 knows how to rectify the issue...

Has your carrier been having issues with Call Display? Do the telephone numbers come up when people call, or does it just show 'Unknown Number' or 'Blocked' ?

Is it possible to export contacts from Outlook 2011 for Mac and importing this file back into Mac Address Book.? please reply me its urgent

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Help, I can not drag and drop address book contacts into numbers.

i have read the manual. watched videos on youtube, but I can not drag and drop address book contacts into numbers or pages. I upgraded to Numbers 09. set up the fields as stipulated, but when I drag a contact to the numbers canvas it just bounces back to address book. I tried reinstalling 09 thinking it was a faulty install. no luck. Have tried dragging to balnk part of canvas, to the table, and to a table with fields, no luck.
Thank you.

Could be a preferences setting. See Jerry's post in this thread.
Regards,
Barry

Mail and address book contacts erased

all my contacts suddenly were gone somehow... I cannot find them anywhere... I don't know their extension to find them...
the last thing i've done before that was to install the new version of vlc media player.. then i found my desktop in a mess and all my contacts and accounts on mail and address book were gone...
they were in my address book and i have two gmail accounts and one from portugalmail associate to .mail...
I cannot recover any of them...
Help me please. Thanks

I have two users and i'm using the one i always use...
/Users/MyUserName/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/...
AddressBook.data - 36kb
ABPerson.skIndexInverted - 8kb
AddressBook.data.previous - 24kb
AddressBook.data.beforesave - notfound
ABPerson.skIndex - 8kb same file as ABPerson.skIndexInverted
/Users/MyUserName/Applications/Application Support/AddressBook/
AddressBook.data - 712kb
ABPerson.skIndexInverted - 120kb
AddressBook.data.previous -1MB
AddressBook.data.beforesave - notfound
ABPerson.skIndex - 120KB same as ABPerson.skIndexInverted

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 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.

ADDRESS BOOK-- DATA/ CONTENTS MISSING---HELP!!!!!!! ???/

I tried the .sarseimage file thing that I read about on another post--and can not find that either. My address book is gone!!!!.. The application is sill there and working, but no previous DATA !!!! I looked in the trash and it's not there and the trash has not been emptied in a while so I don't think another co-worker messed up and trashed it. That data HAS TO BE IN THER SOMEWHERE !!!--If the Feds were looking they find it some how!!!!
PLEASE HELP!!!!

OK, I put this in another post, but here goes again, since maybe you won't find it. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and duplicate the file AddressBook.data.previous. Dump the AddressBook.data file, rename the copy to that, and you should have everything back.
jeff
iBook G4 1.2 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

Address book contacts GONE!!!-Please help me

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