Address Book CSV import format

Can someone point me to where the header record for Address Book CSV import format is documented. I'm trying to match the header record to the default template in Address Book. But I'm just guessing at what the header field labels should be, and looking at what is in the template isn't helpful. There must be Apple documentation somewhere.

If you tell us what e-mail client on your computer, you use - that would help.
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Address Book - CSV Import Template?

I want to create a CSV file to import a large number of contacts into Address Book. I do not know what order the fields are supposed to be in. Does anybody know where I can find a CSV template to use to import these contacts into Address Book?
Thanks,
Dan

I can't tell you what order they go in, but generally speaking, you would use the typical First Name, Last Name, etc order of things. If you take the record with the most amount of data and put that in a text file named 'test.csv' and import it without any field names, Address Book will show you a screen where you can choose which field names you want those pieces of data assigned to, and from that you can create the field names in your actual CSV file and then import it.
Keep in mind that CSV has a very specific syntax it's expecting, so if you don't conform you data to it, you won't get the results you want. You can read it here: CSV Syntax
Mulder

Address Book CSV import hangs on clicking "OK"

Hello, I have an odd problem. I've got a CSV file of addresses (exported from Outlook) that I'm trying to import. I've seen some instructions for this, but the problem I'm having is that once I get to import it shows me the first card (with the options for what field to map where), I have the don't import first card button clicked and I can arrow through the rest of the records which all seem to look ok.
Unfortunately, when I click the "OK" button nothing happens. It turns from blue to white but no addresses are imported, I can keep hitting "OK" with the same lack of effect or hit "Cancel" to close the window.
It's pretty odd, any help?

This option sort of works, I convert to vcard successfully and it imports them all - sort of correctly. But everything has quotes around it each name has many quotes, like the N: field would be:
N: "joe";"Shmoe";"";;""
FN: "joe" "shmoe"
And the address book keeps all the quotes in there.
Very baffling. My original problem persists, too. The "OK" button when trying to import the CSV simply does nothing, no errors, no change of screens, everything just stays exactly as it was. Flipping through the cards on the screen even shows a very nice import, each record seems to look just right.
Argh. So close and yet so far.
felix

Convert AOL address book to Importable format for OS X MAIL

I just looked [ using BBEdit ] at our address book from AOl, which we were using when we were using OS 9.2.2. We were using AOL v. 5.0 - which was the best that we could use with OS 9.2.2.
With BBEdit, I could make out the person names and many of the email addresses in the AOL address book. BUT, it wasw such a "jumble" that editing the file would have been an eternity.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to transfer the info from the AOL address book to OS X v.10.4.6, etc application ADDRESS BOOK ?????
Thanks for your help -- in advance.
Samuel

Address Book has an import function. Have you tried it? There are three formats, one of them text. I don't know AOL, but you should be able to at least export it to a text file.

Why can't I open and retrieve my files from iPhoto and my address book after importing the files from my Power mac G5 to my new Mac Pro? I get a warning that says the new OS on my Pro doesn't open files from a Power Mac. Any idea how I can fix this?

Why can't I open and retrieve my files from iPhoto and my Address Book after importing the files from my Power Mac G5 to my new Mac Pro? I get a warning that says the new OS on my Pro doesn't open files from a Power Mac. Any idea how I can fix this?

For your addressbook, export the files to vCard on the PowerMac, then bring them over to your Mac Pro. For your iPhoto, copy the Users -> yourname -> Pictures folder to your Desktop on the Mac Pro, and open iPhoto on the Mac Pro holding the command and option keys. Select the library file from that Pictures folder and open it. It should import all the pictures into iPhoto as part of the rebuild process. Other PowerPC to Intel migration issues are covered here: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2295

Address Book in spreadsheet format?

I want to print a copy of my address book, I stere a way to print the address book in spreadsheep format and in alpha order?

Is there a way to print the address book (contacts) in spread sheet format?

Address Book no Import Option

i've lost all my contacts recently on Adress Book fortunately there are from my Yahoo account,
except that now i no longer can Import them. AB won't even give me the option to import, the option
disabled.
stef./.\

Funny how this thing played out.....
I was never able to fully migrate all 3,000 plus contacts from Lotus Organizer to Address Book. For whatever reason, about a third of the contacts (randomly) never made the transition. So....just for the heck of it, I dl'd another PIM (Daylite) and was able to successfully migrate my contacts from Lotus Organizer...... to Daylite.....all of them. I then migrated my contacts from Daylite to Address Book and all contacts made the transition.....with one little caveat. The "Notes" portion of each file didn't make it on over. I was about to give up when I decided (for whatever reason) to try adding the Lotus Organizer export to the database now within Address Book and for whatever reason, it added the missing "Notes." Weird. Eh.....it worked!

On my home PC, I operate with Windows XP and use Outlook Express for my email. Can my Outlook Express address book be imported by my IPhone4

On my home PC, I operate with Windows XP and use Outlet Express for my email. Can my Outlook Express address list be imported to my IPhone4

Not directly; OE is not supported by iTunes. You need full Outlook. Address Book in later versions of Windows is supported.

HT2486 Can't delete a group in address book and import is greyed out.

I cannot delete a group from address book and when I choose file>import, import is greyed out and not accessible? Any thoughts?

I have the same question. Such a simple action! APPLE help!!!
Used to love this brand!

Address Book Not Importing Zip Codes

When importing a a tab-delimited txt file into Address book everthing comes through fine. Except. Address Book automatically removes the first number in the zip code if starts with a zero. Leaving a 4 digit zip that is invalid. So what should be 07712 ends up 7712. Which this may not be a bother if you are importing a few addresses. I had over 700 to import, which I had to go through one by one and correct. As I need the for mailings, that I print out on avery labels, in addition to the other contac info. I've read about people having problems in the auto fill in Safari not bringing in the zero from the users vcard.
Has anyone experience this problem? Has / is Apple addressing it? Answer. Not if your zip code starts with a zer0. Thanks.
Imac Mac OS X (10.4.1)

This is a common occurance when text files have been processed by spreadsheets. Unless you make special provisions to preserve them, leading zeros are normally stripped off of the data stored in cells.
It's not the Address Book import that's the problem - it's your source file.

Leopard Address Book Issue: Importing contact from tab delimited just hangs

I have 500 or so contacts, in Excel (they came from ACT on a PC). I have a number of fields not in the standard card layout so I painstakingly added all the right fields, saved the excel file on my Macbook Pro 2.4GHZ (running Leopard 10.5.1) as a "Tab delimited" file, and went into Address Book.
I selected "Import" and assigned all the fields from A.B. to the correct columns from the TXT file.
I chose "ignore first card" since the top row of the file had column names.
As I scan through it using the right arrow I can see the layout is ok.
HOWEVER--when I click "OK", it just sits there--no import happens, no NOTHING happens. I also have no red dot at the upper left to close the window--just the green dot at the upper left to maximize the screen.
After a few clicks here and there the application just hangs.
This is so bizzare--my wife is going to kill me since now I can't print labels for our holiday cards (I am in big trouble).
Anyone have any ideas?

Address Book is most likely encountering an error parsing the file. You can find out if that is the case by opening /Applications/Utilities/Console.app and trying the import again. If you see error messages coming from Address Book, please paste them here.
As for how to fix it, there could be a few reasons why this is happening:
* different lines contain different numbers of fields
* lines include quotation marks or embedded return characters
I recommend searching http://www.versiontracker.com for "address book import". Perhaps a third-party application will be better suited to import your data into Address Book.

Address book contacts imported from .cvs file are duplicated/split on sync

Contacts on my iPod are weird--there are duplicate entries for some people, but one of the duplicates contains only email addresses whereas the other has all the remaining info. Everything seems normal in Addresss Book--no duplicates, and all the info. is there. Not all of my contact entries have this this duplication/split info. problem. Those that have the problem were originally imported into Address Book from an Excel .cvs file. I also sync with a Motorola Razr and the same names were duplicated fully on the phone, with each entry having all the phone numbers that should have been synced. Anyone know what's going on or how to fix this?

Anyone with an answer out there??? Same thing happened to me, nothing in my address book but Yahoo is loaded and has triplicated everything.

Address Book contact importing bug

Bug reproducing sequence:
1) Create any smart-group in the Address Book
2) Double-click that group's name to rename it
3) Command-Tab from Address Book leaving it in status waiting to enter new smart-group's name
4) Double click on any .vcf file to import a new contact into Address Book
5) You'd be forwarded back to Address Book with a window offering to confirm contact's import
Bug itself:
Pressing the Add button actually imports a new contact to the Address Book, but does not close this pop-up window. As a result you can create many copies of the same contact before you notice the problem and close this window pressing Cancel button.
Testing the same sequence on MacMini and iMac caused creation of many Unnamed contacts and did not import a new contact at all.

I found the solution in a different post in the community.
You need to go into yr address book on yr MAC. Edit each contact 1 by 1... Cut (Cmd X) and copy (Cmd V) each pix back in... When you synch yr MAC and iPhone again, pix miraculously appear in Contacts and when you get a call from one of them.
Not a fancy solution but works!...

Thunderbird can't send email to addresses in Address Book because of formatting error

My Thunderbird can't send email to an address picked from the Address Book. It gives the following error:
"An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: 5.1.1 <"name@telconame"@telco.com> Unknown recipient. Please check the message recipient "name@telconame"@telco.com and try again."
You can see that Thunderbird has garbled the name/address pair: "name@telconame"@telco.com" so that it's unworkable.
If I type the email address by hand, it sends the email OK. But it can't retrieve an address from the Address Book without garbling the name/address pair. Win 7, TBird Version 32.0; it's the same in SafeMode.
Any ideas?

Make two Address Book entries for him; one for each of his e-mail addresses. Make a new Address Book group and put both of his entries in it. When you send him an e-mail just type in the name of the group in the To: field.

How do I prevent Address Book from importing undesired data from Mail

Hello, this is my first post here
I was wondering how could I stop Mail to complete or change my Address Book info or backwise: stop Address Book to get data from Mail.
The problem is that if I have a contact in Address Book called "mom" and her mail written there, and she emails me, her real name appears in that mail. Then what I had in Address Book ("mom") is overwrited by the mail app. info.
This is like living in **** because for this reason I can´t even sync my iphone with my Address Book because everything is meesed up.
I think that it is logical that what I write in my own Address Book has a higher rank than what people decide to do with their email info. It´s pure logic.
I want mail and address book to respect me!
respect!
Message was edited by: frege2000

Welcome, frege2000.
See Mulder's solution in this thread.
Computers, hardware and software have no concept of respect.
AK

Address Book CSV import format

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