Address book data ALL GONE

I got a blackberry bold recently with a few contacts in it. Wanting to wipe it first before I sync it, I changed "user/library/application support/AddressBook" to "user/library/application support/AddressBook2" hoping that it would clean all the data in my blackberry first.
Well, address book is all empty that's for sure, but when I rename AddressBook2 to AddressBook, nothing happened. ALL my data is GONE.
Please I beg for your help.

I'm sorry but if there are no .abcd cards in the Metadata folder then your address book data is really gone and there is no way to retrieve it. you can try using data recovery software like Filesalvage or Data Rescue II but chances of getting it back are very slim. In the future I strongly recommend you start backing up to an external drive. there are plenty of excellent backup programs for Mac and external drives are quite cheap these days. see this post http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7495315#7495315

Similar Messages

HT2486 Address book data loss / iMac 10.5.8 / despite backing up on a NAS all data lost, including in the backup. How can I retrieve it? Thanks

Help! All my address book data disappeared from one day to the next. I entered my NAS back-up but all the address books going back in time are empty.
Then I got clever and thought I would sync my contacts from my iPhone 4 to my iMac. Brilliant idea - now all my iPhone contacts are gone as well except for 14 address that must have been input after my last sync with iTunes.
Can anyone help my find my lost data?
Thanks
Paul
P.S. all help appreciated, especially in simple English as I am not a techi!

Paul, get one of these...
Find Any File...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30079/find-any-file
I'd get EasyFind...
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/
Search your whole drive for...
AddressBook.data
Do we find a bigger one?

Address book loses all data and DUPLICATES numerous times

Address book is broke. After installing 10.4.3 I lost ALL my 600 addresses, they just disappeared. I restored from backup database no problem. BUT, now my address book is all confused!!!! I has duplicated the addresses. I resest and zeroed .mac, I reset my iPod addresses and also my bluetooth phone. However, THREE times I have opened address book to find my addresses have been duplicated again! I "merge" and look for duplicate adresses but that does not catch them all. I hope Apple releases new design. Address book is not working very well right now on my 12 inch powerbook G4 with 700meg RAM. Maybe someone can review with me how I should wipe out all previous info on Address book and restore a clean database of addresses. I have gone in an looked in library/Application Support/Address Book and replaced that folder already.

Hello Mark, welcome to the discussions. I think the confusion lies with the syncing software rather than AB itself. Try turning of syncing, then delete and restore your AB on the powerbook. Observe it for a couple of days without doing any syncing and I think you will find it is stable.
AK

How to recover address book and all mailbox data

How to recover address book and all mailbox data, from mounted drive that had OS10.4.11 now has bad blocks, and is not boot-able.
Any help would be appreciated.... hermann

The drive is mounted (appears as a drive on the desktop)? You can't just copy the files, or is it not really mounted?
It would help to have more details on the status of this drive since I am obviously confused as to whether or not it is mounted and appears on the desktop. Is this an internal or external drive? If internal, how are you booting your computer now?
There are data recovery tools such as [Data Rescue II|http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php] or [FileSalvage|http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1]. Both have free trial versions that let you see if the software will help before you decide to buy. You will also need a second hard drive equal to or larger in size than your first drive as a destination drive for recovered files. If the critical files are located on the bad blocks then there isn't much hope other than to send the drive out to a professional data recovery service which could cost $1000.
The easiest way to recover the files is to get them off a backup drive.

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.

Once on iCloud how do you recover lost address book data?

After moving to iCloud my wife suddenely lost all her contact info earlier today. When opening Address Book on her iMac & iPad all contact info was gone. We signed on to iCloud.com and it was gone there too. For some reason it was still on her iPhone. I tried to force a merge from her phone by shutting off iCloud Contacts; selecting to keep data on the device; then turned it back on hoping to get the 'merge data' option. I didn't get that message and sure enough in a few seconds the address book on her phone went empty.
So, this raised the question about where do I recover the data from? I looked in finder on her iMac under user/Library/Addplication Support/Address Book - there were some files and directories there, but nothing that looked like it was loaded with contact info. I'm assumming once she moved to iCloud the detail is no longer stored locally in OS X?
I went into System Prefs and shut off iCloud Contacts on the iMac, opened Time Machine, went back a week ago (prior to iCloud) and found contact info in the user/Library/Addplication Support/Address Book directory and restored the entire directory. Opened Address Book and it was populated with data. turned on iCloud Contacts and selected the 'Merge' data option which then populated her other devices.
So, the question is - what if it had been longer than a week - where is this data (and probably calendar data too!) being backed up and where (and how) would you restore it from if it did suddenly turn up missing?

RickTexas wrote:
So this gets back to my original question... not sure if bgbrobru is running Time Machine backups, but even if he is, I don't think the Address Book data is recoverable (unless you go back to a pre-iCloud backup) because it is no longer stored locally.
If I understand correctly the only thing we can do going forward is to run a periodic 'manual' export of iCal and Address Book data to insure we have a backup? In the event I do something stupid and mistakingly delete something or - like what happened to my wife today - the entire address book (or calendar entries) just disapear, we are screwed? I guess this would also apply to email stored in folders on iCloud?
Seems there should be some way to capture the iCloud data in a Time Machine (or some other mechanism) backup?
Sorry Rick but that's incorrect,
Here's a shot of the folder it lives in and the path to it, Time Machine backs it up.

How can I access Address Book data from an older version of the application to transfer it to a newer version of Mac OS running on a second hard drive on the same MDD G4?

I installed a hard drive from one PowerPC Dual 1.25 GHz MDD into another one with an older version of the OS X. all my Address Book data are on the older hard drive, from which I now boot the computer. When I launch Address Book as an app on the hard drive with the newer version of the OS, I get an error message that says I cannot run the version of Address Book from the older hard drive on the newer OS. How can I access the data on the older hard drive version of the Address Book app so that I can transfer it to the newer version of the app on the boot drive? The "Import" functionality will not work. I will be grateful for any help I can get. I would also like to uninstall the older version of OS X from the older hard drive.

Boot from the older version of OSX, then in AB use the File>Export>Export vCard after selecting all in AB.
Then boot from the new OSx & use the new AB to import that VCF file.

How can I delete my address book data

Running Lion. I've read in several post that the data file is in home folder/library/application support/AddressBook.
To test this I set up a temporary user account, added a few contacts to the address book, quit the application, deleted the entire AddressBook folder and contents in home folder/library/application support/AddressBook, re-launched Address Book and the new contacts I just created are still there.
I quit address book, deleted this same folder and contents again, this time also deleted all address book preference files in library/preferences, re-launched address book and the new contacts are still there.
Anyone know where the data file is really kept? In a brand new user account there aren't many files in home folder/library so it shouldn't be too hard to find but I sure can't seem to.
Any help would be appreciated.
PS. For those who want to know "why". I believe my daughter's Mac has a corrupt address book data file so I want to start over "fresh" but can't seem to locate where the true data file is.
Thanks,

"Perhaps for recovery or sync, don't know"
This was just a possible but the sync part of it really isn't possible in this case. In setting up a new temporary account on my Mac it would be an account without an iCloud or MobilMe account so there would be no syncing involved.
Address Book data for each user's account will be stored only within that users account. The fake contacts I've created in the temporary user account certainly don't show up in any other account.
Your behaviour "if I delete the files mentioned, there is absolutely nothing left." is exactly what I would expect. Just can't figure out (yet) what's going on, on my Mac because this expected behaviour is not happening.

E51 address book data access via Bluetooth to Garm...

I have a new E51 but cannot access address book data via Bluetooth from a Garmin Sat Nav (model 310). Worked perfectly with old Nokia 6310, but returns a 'no can do' message when using the E51. Lack of this feature is a big problem - surely Bluetooth communication is supposed to work to a common standard. This is not good. Does anyone have a solution or know of a patch to cure this? Thanks.

All metioned problems are Samsung's fault. Blame them.
I've been assuming it was a Samsung problem, and have posted help requests in cell phone forums that Samsung engineers and/or support allegedly reads. I was hoping there might be some way to automate a workaround from the computer end...
Now, if Address Book had an option to define the fields that are to be exported or perhaps automatically sub Company Names for last names the problem would be solved when exporting for cell phones. I can't belive no one has ever encountered this before -- it has been a problem with every cell phone I have ever owned.

How can I get my address book data back?

After upgrading to OS6, my address book has gone from almost a thousand entries to being totally empty.
This is a *very* big deal for me bc I have no address book application on my PC.
I had always assumed that if iTunes were backing up my iPod, that I would be able to restore from those backups, but now I cannot figure out how to tell iTunes to restore from a backup. I've got a backup... just cannot restore from it.
There's got to be a way.... and I'm probably looking right at it and not seeing it.

It has been a very long time since I used 10.1.5 but Address Book data is not stored in a .plist file.
The Address Book data should be located in an Addresses folder at Home > Library > Addresses.
Locate this folder and with the Address Book application quit, move it back to the proper location.

My Address Book application is GONE - question mark on it on taskbar

Hi. I'm a relatively new Mac user. My Address Book app is gone completely from my Applications folder and it has a question mark on it when I click on the icon in the taskbar. All of my contacts appear to be intact in Mail - they show up when I type addresses in emails, and I can still see the photos I assigned to contacts when these contacts send me email. But the app itself is gone from the Applications folder and I can't seem to find it no matter where I search. I've searched for Address Book under every user profile on this machine.
I should note that I have 4-year-old daughter who uses this mac on occasion and who seems to have a special gift for the sorts of mouse-clicks and command-typing that evaporate or otherwise misfile important applications.
How do I reinstall just Address Book? It seems to be the only App missing. The Leopard disk seemed to be suggesting that a complete reinstall would be necessary which seems a bit much for just the one app.

You can use a program called "Pacifist" to install individual applications from the Leopard DVD (Available here: http://www.charlessoft.com/)

My address book icon is gone from the screen on my black...

my address book icon is gone from the screen on my blackberry pearl..please help me recover. Thanks

Make selective backup
save only data that you need to be saved.
After that on the device go to Options - Security Options - General Settings
Hit the menu button and select "Wipe handheld"
It will wipe the device memory.
After that restore the saved information to the device.

Address book data is XML-encoded in LDAP ?

Hi,
We are trying to find out how address book data is stored in the LDAP, and we've found several different ways apparently. Some format seems to use an XML encoded format (this is when you go in the UWC (JES5) and add a new group and in stead of selecting contacts to add, you just type a name, and an email address).
This is how it looks like in the ldap:
absi@nagios ~/ $ ldapsearch -D "cn=Directory manager" -w Jxxxxxxxxxx -b "o=PiServerDb" -h 192.168.xxx.50 "displayname=test_manueel"
version: 1
dn: piEntryID=e115cc045b373f,piPStoreOwner=adresboekadmin,o=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxt.be
,o=PiServerDb
piEntryID: e115cc045b373f
objectClass: PITYPEGROUP
objectClass: piEntry
objectClass: top
memberOfPIBook: e114db3c213216f6
displayName: test_manueel
pipEntryXMLData:: PG9saT4KIDxHcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPnRlc3QzJTVFU01UUCU1RXRlc3QzJTQ
wdmxhYW1zcGFybGVtZW50LmJlPC9Hcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPgogPEdyb3VwRXhNZW1iZXI+a2llcmV
3aWV0JTVFU01UUCU1RWtpZXJld2lldCU0MHZsYWFtc3BhcmxlbWVudC5iZTwvR3JvdXBFeE1lbWJ
lcj4KIDxHcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPnRlc3Q0NSU1RVNNVFAlNUV0ZXN0NDUlNDBhYnNpLmJlPC9Hcm9
1cEV4TWVtYmVyPgo8L29saT4K
However, I can't find any usable reference to this ldap attribute 'pipEntryXMLData' , except that it's used by JES 2005Q1 onwards
I'm also concerned by the following:
- in case of problems, are there tools to read out / export this XML data in anything that is human readable / parseable ?
- what about scalability, we will be having members with thousands of entries in their addressbook, is this method scalable or will we be experiencing delays when users are looking up contacts in their address books ?
All info on this is more than welcom!
regards,
Tom.

The ldapsearch tools are producing LDIF format (RFC 2849) which requires that non ascii values and values with some specific characters be Base64 encoded.
XML is out of these formats that start with a special character with regards to LDIF ('<') and for which values must be base64 encoded.
There are many decoders for base64 encoding.
Alternately, you can use an LDAP API (C or Java) and the value will not be encoded.
Regards,
Ludovic.

Address book data is XML-encoded ?

Hi,
We are trying to find out how address book data is stored in the LDAP, and we've found several different ways apparently. Some format seems to use an XML encoded format (this is when you go in the UWC (JES5) and add a new group and in stead of selecting contacts to add, you just type a name, and an email address).
This is how it looks like in the ldap:
absi@nagios ~/ $ ldapsearch -D "cn=Directory manager" -w Jxxxxxxxxxx -b "o=PiServerDb" -h 192.168.xxx.50 "displayname=test_manueel"
version: 1
dn: piEntryID=e115cc045b373f,piPStoreOwner=adresboekadmin,o=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxt.be
,o=PiServerDb
piEntryID: e115cc045b373f
objectClass: PITYPEGROUP
objectClass: piEntry
objectClass: top
memberOfPIBook: e114db3c213216f6
displayName: test_manueel
pipEntryXMLData:: PG9saT4KIDxHcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPnRlc3QzJTVFU01UUCU1RXRlc3QzJTQ
wdmxhYW1zcGFybGVtZW50LmJlPC9Hcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPgogPEdyb3VwRXhNZW1iZXI+a2llcmV
3aWV0JTVFU01UUCU1RWtpZXJld2lldCU0MHZsYWFtc3BhcmxlbWVudC5iZTwvR3JvdXBFeE1lbWJ
lcj4KIDxHcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPnRlc3Q0NSU1RVNNVFAlNUV0ZXN0NDUlNDBhYnNpLmJlPC9Hcm9
1cEV4TWVtYmVyPgo8L29saT4K
However, I can't find any usable reference to this ldap attribute 'pipEntryXMLData' , except that it's used by JES 2005Q1 onwards
I'm also concerned by the following:
- in case of problems, are there tools to read out / export this XML data in anything that is human readable / parseable ?
- what about scalability, we will be having members with thousands of entries in their addressbook, is this method scalable or will we be experiencing delays when users are looking up contacts in their address books ?
All info on this is more than welcom!
regards,
Tom.

Hi,
tom_absi wrote:
We are trying to find out how address book data is stored in the LDAP, and we've found several different ways apparently. Some format seems to use an XML encoded format (this is when you go in the UWC (JES5) and add a new group and in stead of selecting contacts to add, you just type a name, and an email address).This isn't surprising as there wasn't any pre-existing attribute which could be used to add these values. So it appears they are using an XML 'blob' instead.
This is how it looks like in the ldap:
pipEntryXMLData:: PG9saT4KIDxHcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPnRlc3QzJTVFU01UUCU1RXRlc3QzJTQ
wdmxhYW1zcGFybGVtZW50LmJlPC9Hcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPgogPEdyb3VwRXhNZW1iZXI+a2llcmV
3aWV0JTVFU01UUCU1RWtpZXJld2lldCU0MHZsYWFtc3BhcmxlbWVudC5iZTwvR3JvdXBFeE1lbWJ
lcj4KIDxHcm91cEV4TWVtYmVyPnRlc3Q0NSU1RVNNVFAlNUV0ZXN0NDUlNDBhYnNpLmJlPC9Hcm9
1cEV4TWVtYmVyPgo8L29saT4KThis is base64 encoded and decodes as (http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/dotnet/tools/Base64Decode/):
<oli>
<GroupExMember>test3%5ESMTP%5Etest3%40vlaamsparlement.be</GroupExMember>
<GroupExMember>kierewiet%5ESMTP%5Ekierewiet%40vlaamsparlement.be</GroupExMember>
<GroupExMember>test45%5ESMTP%5Etest45%40absi.be</GroupExMember>
</oli> However, I can't find any usable reference to this ldap attribute 'pipEntryXMLData' , except that it's used by JES 2005Q1 onwardsAppears to be a 'private' attribute. Although you can access the data because it is stored in an LDAP server I don't believe it is a public interface so it is bound to change.
I'm also concerned by the following:
- in case of problems, are there tools to read out / export this XML data in anything that is human readable / parseable ?The base64 decoded version seems parseable to me?
- what about scalability, we will be having members with thousands of entries in their addressbook, is this method scalable or will we be experiencing delays when users are looking up contacts in their address books ?Assuming you have a sufficiently scoped/tuned directory server I don't see there is going to be a problem.
Regards,
Shane.

Address book data ALL GONE

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