Address Book Deleted

So this is my first posting and I'm not a mac genius or anything so bear with me... my HD crashed on my macbook and I restored from my external HD but Address book was empty.
I can't find where my address book contacts are saved on my external HD. Or how to restore them...Any suggestions? My external HD is a simpletough if that helps. Help - I'm desperate!

Hi jjkimmel, and a warm welcome to the forums!
For Address Book...
Files...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.abd.plist
Folders...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/

Similar Messages

Address book deleted contacts re-appearing - sometimes more than once

I'm having a real problem with .mac, leopard address book and my iphone.
I've got four contacts in my address book that are first names only. Two of these used to be first name and last name. Once I do a sync, these contacts will appear twice - once with first name only, and again with first name last name. I've tried deleting them from all places - .mac, address book and my phone, but as soon as I do a sync again, they re-appear. It's really starting to annoy me.
The other two were always just first name - these two sync perfectly.

Thank you so much for the welcome
This is my my first post, and I posted because after searching the boards I did find a temporary fix to the problem. It appears there are several threads about this problem with Address Book. A sample can be found here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6280012
I have searched for a contact in the "All" group to no avail. Deleting the .abcddb file did correct the problem initially, but the problem returned shortly after. For now I am scrolling through the "All" list to find the contact I'm looking for alphabetically. It's not the end of the world, just an annoying problem. I do end up finding who I need to in the end at least
Thanks for the reply

Address Book Deleted Accidentally

Hi, I accidentally deleted the address book application. The data is still present in the folders.
I have a MacBook 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. After loosing the application, I also kept on upgrading the OS. Now I have Mac OS 10.6.6.
I copied Address Book application from my wife's MacBook Pro Install DVD by using the Terminal Window. Now when I try to open the application, I get the message
"You can't use this version of the application Address Book with this version of Mac OS X. You have Address Book 4.1.2"
Please help. I have tried Combo Updater but that does not work as it is 10.6.4. I have done Permissions Verification and nothing.

How Restore Deleted or Missing OS X Components
A few of the basic OS X installed applications can be restored from the Optional Installs installer located in the Optional installs folder on your Installer DVD. However, if what you need is not there then follow the instructions below.
How to Use Pacifist to Restore Deleted or Missing OS X Components
Insert the OS X Installer DVD into the optical drive. Use a simple utility like TinkerTool to toggle invisibility so you can see invisible items. Alternatively, open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder and at the prompt enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles Yes
Press RETURN.
To turn off the display of invisible files repeat the above command substituting No for Yes.
The install packages are located in the /System/Installation/ folder on the DVD.
Download the shareware utility Pacifist from VersionTracker or MacUpdate. Use it to extract a fresh copy of the missing item(s) from the file archives on your OS X installation DVD. The file archives are in the /System/Installations/ folder (use Go to Folder option in the Go menu of the Finder.)
Here are Four Basic ways to use Pacifist (courtesy of George Orville.)
A. Drag a .pkg icon onto the Pacifist window .....proceed to step 7.
B. Click on “Open Package ....” and navigate to package desired and click “Open” in the open/save window.....proceed to step 7.
C. Insert Mac OS X installer CD and when it mounts, navigate to .... Menu->Go->Go to Folder.
In the path field enter or paste ....
/Volumes/disc name/System/Installation/Packages (where disc name is the name of the CD/DVD that you inserted.
• Click on the "Go" button .....
• Drag a .pkg to Pacifist..... proceed to step 7.
The package you'll need will have to be discovered by trial and error, but for most applications you should start with the Essentials.pkg and/or Additional Essentials.pkg.
D. Insert your Mac OS X install disk 1 .... and open Pacifist.
1. In Pacifist, select "Open Mac OS X Install Packages" ... dialog may appear asking for disk 2, then disk 3 and finally disk 1 again.... {if DVD is not used)...If “Stop Loading” is selected...the procedure will stop!!!
2a. When loading is complete, a new window appears, click the triangle to display contents of each package...Select item and proceed to step 7.
2b. or click the “Find” icon in the Pacifist window and type the name of the software you need.
3. In the list that comes back, click the top most entry for the item that you want. ..... that is the one for the English language.
4. On the top of the Pacifist window, click “verify” .... you will probably be prompted for your password.
5. Enter checks for.... “verify permissions” and “verify file contents.” and click “verify” ....enter password when prompted.... you will get back output which may look like this:
20 files were scanned.
20 of 20 files were present on the hard disk.
0 of 20 files had file permissions that did not match those specified in the package.
0 of 20 files had checksums that did not match those specified in the package.
6. Click “close”. Go to step 7.
Extract or Install........
7. In the Toolbar (upper left), you now have the option to extract or install. Click a file in the lower list and those two icons will be enabled.
8. If “Extract to...” is selected.... navigate to the location where the file will be placed, select “choose”, select “extract” in new dialog that appears,authenicate , if prompted, click “OK”.
9. In the next dialog, click “Extract”.
10. If “Install” is selected... dialog will appear with the location/path of the installed software. Click “Install”
11. Type in your password, click “OK”
• Pacifist will begin to extract files.
12. In steps 8/10ß.... you also have the choice to “cancel”
Notes.....
• Pacifist may find that a file it is installing already exists on the hard disk. Pacifist will present you with an alert panel....
Stop
Leave original alone
Update ..... Default selection
Replace .... Replace option should only be used on full install packages
Reinstall the OS X Combo Updater for the current version you have installed. About this Mac in the Apple menu will display the installed version of OS X.

HT1199 address book deleted by itself

While I was updating my address book adding new contact information, the next thing I know all my contacts are gone except for
4.
It seems like they were deleted by a virus because when I was updating, the field would all of a sudden go blank, I kept re-entering the update not realizing what appeared to be going on was my contact information was being deleted.
Message was edited by: ogolferdave
Closing this out - when I closed contacts and re-opened, the contacts were back...so NTF - but weird

The reason could be a piece of software, such as a Dashboard widget or an AppleScript, that requires Address Book to be running for whatever it does.

Address book deletes parts or sections of individual cards

My address book has deleted parts of some of my addresses; i.e. deletes home address. When I go back in time machine I find the original card as it used to be beginning of September. If I restore the card it imports the card into my address book exactly as it appears now without the home address information. Has anybody experienced the same problem?

hpMac wrote:
I do sync with mobile me. I am using a whole number of devices with my mobile me account (laptop, computer, iPhone, etc.). But I never deleted the address in any of these devices.
This could also mean that other vCards have lost information and I have just not found out yet, wright?
right.
are your contacts missing info on your other devices? or just on this computer?
check that first.
next you should reset your mobileme sync data.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1497
then turn off mobileme syncing completely for the address book and try teh steps in my first post.

Why is Address Book deleting all my contacts randomly?

Hi,
I've been using a 20" Intel iMac for about 2 years now, and I've loved it. However, after upgrading to Leopard in late May, and having my .mac account upgraded to MobileMe in July, my Address Book will randomly delete all of my contacts (over 700).
Aside from the "panic" this causes, it also loses "My Card" which means iCal can't send email invites for meetings I schedule, auto-complete in Mail doesn't work, etc.
I've Reset Syncing with MobileMe a number of times, and finally turned off syncing with MobileMe altogether. The problem is still happening. I've also re-installed Leopard using the Archive & Install option, Software Updated my system with all the patches and updates, restored an old Address Book archive -- I do weekly backups offsite -- and still the problem persists.
The only thing I can find -- and which I am utterly incapable of doing anything about -- is a one-line entry in Console's Log files that reads:
7/17/08 5:48:55 AM com.apple.launchd[511] ([0x0-0x96096].com.apple.AddressBook.abd[1820]) Check-in of Mach service failed. PID 1820 is not privileged: com.apple.AddressBook.abd
Right after this scrolls by, I check my Address Book and sure enough...it's empty. What can I do about this?

I have Backup 3 scheduled to backup my address book data files (and a number of others as well) every week, and store them out on my iDisk. When I realized my address book was empty, I used Backup to restore one of the older archives. Without that, I'm not sure what I would have done...
For what it's worth, I have a little bit of new information to add to this story. As an experiment, I restored my backup and immediately exported my entire address book to a vCard file. The next time my data disappeared, I imported the vCard file instead of my address book archive. I lost all of my groups -- which is frustrating -- but so far, the actual contact data has remained in my address book for 5 hours. This is the longest by far...
Interestingly enough, I'm still getting that weird error message in Console, but there used to also be messages about certain contacts not having meta data and certain contacts having meta data. Now, there is just the permissions error...no more complaints about meta data.
Perhaps this is all just a bad coincidence with a corrupted address book data file, but still doesn't explain the Console error message. I'm going to keep experimenting until I either find a solution, someone here suggests a solution, or I simply give up out of frustration.

Mail and Address Book: Deleted email returns to Inbox

Hello all and happy holidays...
That is until just a while ago, my Mail keeps receiving two similar emails (one with attachment) of Xmas Specials and offerings from one of the vendor/shop I visited. When I click on the mail itself, I just see the "loading..." in the message body, no pics, no text, assuming it is a large graphic-based or something email, *so I tried deleting them, only to have them re-appear again in the IN box.*
*I just simply can't get rid of them!* Every time I delete them, they disappear from the IN box, I click the Trash icon, they are there, I further delete them, and when I click back the IN box, they are back again
It has become an annoyance! I call the shop and they said their marketing dept will take me off the email list, but they can't help me on the immediate problem, *how to trash these email away permanently?* They actually ask me to call AppleCare Hotline...! Gosh, I know about AppleCare Hotline and they will go through you the 1001 steps to diagnose your system one step at a time, I just thought this is the vendor's "problem" and they should be able to fix the problem for me!
So anyone, hope someone's home and getting online here, if you know how to, please help.
Thanks a zillion and Merry Xmas!

Move the offending file to the Trash and make sure that Trash does not contain any files you may want to retain.
Shut down Mail.
From the Finder click on Go>Home.
Double click on the Library.
option drag the Mail folder to the desktop.
This should make a copy of the Mail folder.
Once you are sure that Mail is backed up, open the Mail folder in the Library.
Open the Mailboxes folder and open the Deleted Messages.mbox>Messages folder.
Drag any messages in the folder to the trash can in the Dock.
Empty Trash.
Now reopen the Mail folder and locate the MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3 and the Envelope Index files and drag them to the desktop.
Next close all windows and open the Mail program.

Address Book: Deleting 'Department' field - TOTAL NEWBIE

Hi...
I amended a card to include the Department Field via the 'add field' function. Now I can't delete it as I want to use a different field instead. Can someone please help?
Tks...

Hello s:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
I don't think I understand what you did or what you wish to do….
However, I think this article will help you:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=AddressBook/5.0/en/9163.html
Barry

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.

Once Mac address book synched from iphone and contacts deleted they won't resynch back

I have a problem and have spent hours researching but to no avail
1. I got a new iphone 4S and put in my mail info from yahoo, gmail and low and behold I had a contact list now in my phone. I thought, "I just love Apple!"
2. I spent all afternoon on my iphone updating my contact list with contact photos, birthdays and all the stuff I never put in on my email program or my MacPro Leopard mac addressbook.
3. With trepidation, I synched via usb with itunes my contacts and suddenly I had 3 (or more versions of my contacts on every site or device). To see what was going on (as I wasn't sure if my mac would erase iphone contacts or add to them etc) I tried putting a test contact "iphone test" on my phone, yahoo test on my yahoo account, and mac test contact on my laptop address book, and gmail test in my gmail's contacts, and synched again.... For the most part every test contact showed up everywhere (not yahoo test in gmail's account mind you)
4. GREAT I thought. I will just DELETE the contacts in the mac address book, yahoo, gmail accounts, fix my iphone duplicate contacts so I have one perfect set on the iphone and resynch and I should have my iphone contacts filling in all the right places (yahoo, gmail, and mac address book from the iphone) and they will all now be identical... SO WRONG!
5. None of the prior contacts would sync. Only new contacts will synch (ones that were never before synched, ie, a new iphone test contact WILL show up in my Mac address book but the other 100 won't (apparently the computer knows they were already synced or something.)
I am now left with all my contacts on my phone and none in my computer! I have synched in itunes about 10 times with "contacts" checked trying different settings for yahoo, gmail but no source will retake my iphone contacts now that it was synced and the mac address book deleted...
Can anyone help???

Thanks for your timely response. I really appreciate the heads up on the My Contacts Backup App since when you have gone from 4 copies of contacts to one you are starting to feel insecure...
Unfortunately, after following this to a "T" (2x) no luck... The mac address book was empty to begin with so I added three new contacts, synched and then started from there...
I unchecked the sync box and synched. Deleted 2 of the 3 contacts and checked the "sync contacts"--all contacts (I have no groups). It synched without prompting me for a merge and the new single contact did not show up in the iphone... bummer. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.
SORRY, I ACCIDENTALLY GAVE MYSELF HELPFUL POINTS AND THEY WERE FOR RANDERS4....

Unable to delete contact notes in Address Book

Hi there, I don't quite know why but, after removing text in the notes field for any given contact in Address Book, the text removed again shows up. I tried deleting all text in the notes field and, after a second, all the text comes back. This is true whether I press Edit at the bottom of the card or not. Does anybody know how to fix this?

Try: Quit Address book,delete ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb, launch addressbook and see if that does the trick.
...JER

Address Book freezing with Smart Groups - how to delete them?

Hi guys,
I made some Smart Groups in AB to get ready for iPhone 3G, and one of them has another smart group as a criterion – Address Book really doesn't like this, and freezes every time I try to click on that group. That's fine, I just want to delete, but you have to actually have a group selected in Address Book to get the contextual delete menu, and of course AB freezes before I can get there.
My question: is there a .plist somewhere I can edit to clear out these two groups, or any other ideas on how to delete these two groups that crash Address Book? Thanks!

quit mail and address book and go to the directory homedirectory/Library/Application support/Address Book.
delete the file AddressBook-v22.abcddb. then go to the subfolder Metadata and delete the group cards for the smart groups in question. To quickly find them search for "groups" in that folder. when you start address book, those smart groups should be gone.

Isync Motorola Razver and Address Boks delete all contacts

Mu first sync betweem my cellphone and my macbook was fine and I transfer all my contacts from the phone to Adress Book. In the second time that I tried, I lost all the contacts in both Address Booka dn cellphone. How recover that?

Paul O' wrote:
Address Book is syncing correctly now. Initially I was getting many duplicates. I took deleted all the contacts in Address Book, deleted the Address Book folder under Application Support, and then resynced with Google. It's been solid ever since. Could I have deleted something that was needed to make Address Book and Mail work together?
no. Mail uses the address book database directly. the one that I had you delete. it was rebuilt from metadata on restart. did you quit both Mail and address book when you did it? I would still strongly suspect sync data being at fault. first try this again. quit both Mail and address book and delete the AB database file again along with homedirectory/library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook
then start address bok and Mail. alos, do you have any mail or address book plugins? have you installed ANY kind of new software recently?

Address Book Sync

Not a new subject but an unresolved one, I know that because I just spent the last 90 minutes reviewing 166 pages of discussions. Had to restore my IPhone yesterday, lost my contacts and now I cannot get my address book to sync to my phone contacts list. Checked sync all contacts in info on itunes, nada. Clicked reset sync history in Isync and the checked reset iphone information on the info page in Itunes , still no contacts appearing on my Iphone after pressing apply and syncing. Please any new thoughts? The thought of having to manually sync all the info from my computer contacts list to my iphone list is not what i want to be doing on a Patriots-Colts Sunday. Thanks Dennis

Initially, I reset my iphone & made some significant changes to my Address Book, including syncing with Plaxo client on my mac (OS X 10.5 MacBook Pro).
When I went to the info panel on iTunes, it showed only my old Address Book groups, which I had deleted earlier. The contacts on my iPhone would be empty after each sync.
I did a few things.
First, I exported all my contacts from Address Book. Then I reset iSync and deleted all the data on my iPhone, but during syncs, iTunes still showed two old, previously deleted groups. I re-imported my contacts into Address Book & deleted the groups (but not the contacts in each group).
Next I created some new groups in Address Book and added some cards to them. The groups do appear in iTunes; contacts from these groups will succesfully sync.
Although I got it to eventually work, this situation is highly annoying and needs to be resolved by Apple ASAP. I've got well over 1500 contacts and it is a huge issue to recategorize them into groups over and over again.

Changes not being saved in Address Book

Hi,
I've been editing one of the entries in my Address Book (deleting the surname input), but every time I do this and go out of Address Book the surname comes back. Not a massive problem, but it's very annoying especially as it all links in to Mail etc.
If anyone knows why this is and how it can be fixed it would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

I just encountered the same thing while setting up a couple new Macs with 10.6.8, it's very frustrating, but I found the solution, at least in my case. Maybe this is the same problem you are encountering:
I imported a whole bunch of contacts from another Mac to the first one (using a batch vCard). Anyway, I noticed a few of them were out of date so I edited them. Then I saved them (using both the export vCard group and the Address Book archive), then I took that file to the second Mac I was setting up, and imported them. but I noticed that most (but not all) of the changes I'd just made (prior to exporting) were not saved. This was quite a puzzler, and took a little while to figure out why some changes were being saved and not others.
I believe this problem is due to a interface design flaw in Address Book.
You see, when you press the "Edit" button to unlock a contact record, the "edit" button turns blue (signifying that the record is editable). But what's not clear is that none of the changes are actually committed until you press the exact same "Edit" button again to commit all the changes you've made (on that record and any others edited since the "Edit" button was last clicked).
So, really, what's missing here is a warning dialog. When you select an Export option, and the "edit" button is still blue, a dialog should appear saying that "recent changes are unsaved and will be lost" (or something to that effect). In my opinion, the edit button should probably turn into a "Save Changes" button or something like that.
This is especially confusing, because the uncommitted changes are persistently visible in the Address Book even after switching contacts. In most databases, uncomitted changes are lost as soon as you leave a record without saving, but not in Address Book. It looks like all your changes have been made even though they aren't. And I think it's fair to say that the typical user will assume that when you export the address book contacts, the export will appear identical to how it appeared when they saved it, but if the "Edit" button was blue during the save, that will not be the case, and there is no warning to that effect. So it leads to unexpected behavior in that some recent changes are saved but the most recent are not.
Anyway, I'm sure there'll be other opinions as to the interface design, but it's clear to me this is the problem, and the solution is to always make sure the "edit" button is NOT blue before saving or exporting the address book or contacts.
I also wouldn't have noticed it unless I was trying to set up two computers at once (since the changes were so minor, I might have not ever noticed they weren't saved otherwise). So I wouldn't be surprised if this problem has been around for a long time and I never noticed it before.
Hope that helps...

Address Book Deleted

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