Address book issues; excessive duplicates, syncing, ...

Hey guys,
I have had this issue for a long time and have not been able to fix it. I have multiple duplicates for most of my contacts. I sync my ical, contacts, and other settings between my desktop, laptop, iPhone and now my iPad. How can I clean them up and get my settings corrected so this doesn't happen again? Is it possible to edit contacts on whichever device I need to at the time and have mobile me add the new contact without creating a duplicated address book or iCal? This seems to be what it's doing; combining 4 seemingly unique address books and calendars and adding them together instead of merging them. Thanks in advance for the help.
Kevin

I sync my ical, contacts, and other settings between my desktop, laptop, iPhone and now my iPad.
iSync (this forum) doesn't sync between computers or with the iPhone and iPad. It is only for syncing to non-Apple mobile phones.
You must either be using iTunes or MobileMe. The forums for those are here:
iTunes: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=789
MobileMe: http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=116

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Troubleshooting Address Book issues using Palm Desktop for Mac (v. 4.2.1) and a T3?

Can someone please make suggestions which would correct the following issues?
1) When printing an Address Book from my Mac, the information in the "title" field prints twice. (I have checked my Preferences settings & reviewed how I have entered the information, etc. and everything is in order; also, an Address CARD DOES print correctly --- and --- after syncing to my T3 and then to my husband's PC, an Address Book prints correctly from the PC.)
2) After I have synced the Address Book from my Mac to my T3, the "zip code" entries appear BEFORE the "city" entries on the T3. (The zip codes appear correctly on my Mac and print out correctly.)
3) After I have synced the Address Book from my Mac to my T3, the "contacts" all appear in BLACK on my T3. Is there any way to show the different "contact categories" in COLOR on the T3 as they were originally entered in my Palm Desktop for Mac?
Post relates to: Tungsten T3

I Use Windows And Cant Help Sorry
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Dear joeweather45,
HAR asked a question that matches your expertise. Please respond to this question by directly replying to this email or by clicking the link below.
Question Subject: Troubleshooting Address Book issues using Palm Desktop for Mac (v. 4.2.1) and a T3?
Question Details: Can someone please make suggestions which would correct the following issues?
1) When printing an Address Book from my Mac, the information in the 'title' field prints twice. (I have checked my Preferences settings & reviewed how I have entered the information, etc. and everything is in order; also, an Address CARD DOES print correctly --- and --- after syncing to my T3 and then to my husband's PC, an Address Book prints correctly from the PC.)
2) After I have synced the Address Book from my Mac to my T3, the 'zip code' entries appear BEFORE the 'city' entries on the T3. (The zip codes appear correctly on my Mac and print out correctly.)
3) After I have synced the Address Book from my Mac to my T3, the 'contacts' all appear in BLACK on my T3. Is there any way to show the different 'contact categories' in COLOR on the T3 as they were originally entered in my Palm Desktop for Mac?
Device Name: Tungsten T3
Desktop Computer Operating System: Mac OS 10.3.x
Desktop computer brand and model number: Mac PowerBook G4
Desktop Personal Information Manager: Palm Desktop 4.2.1 Mac
How is your device connected to your computer: USB
Type of help question: Troubleshooting
Your expertise is valued. Thanks in advance for your response!
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Address Book Accounts not showing sync options

Address Book > Accounts not showing sync options. - just a blank panel to right of "On My Mac". Cause could possibly be that I imported current contact list from vcf export of AB. Anyone any toughts on how can I retrieve the syncing options?

Don't take what I have to say as fact, because I don't use a Mac and could be mistaken. I remember reading last night something about people taking and checking the box on the Summary page of iTunes to replace the info on the iPhone with the computer. Once that was done, it seemed to correct this issue and showed the address groups after that.
It might be worth the experiment, however I would make sure I had a backup of the phone before I tried it. I know it was only the last day or show that I read it, so if you want to search the forum before you try it, be my guest. I don't want to ruin anything for you, but I just remember reading that someone did that and it fixed it.
Hope this helps.

Access address book on iphone without syncing?

The screen has stopped working on my girlfriends iphone and she needs to access her contacts before it's replaced tomorrow, is there a way of accessing the address book without having to sync it to my computer as her mac is at home? I dont want to have to sync her phone with my mac as that will erase all her music etc and she's not sure when she last backed it up on her mac!

I think you can use your Mac, as her iPhone will be a new device. Look in the 'Reader Tips' tab on syncing to a new computer. You have to jump through a few pretty easy hoops, and then you have a backup on the new computer (yours) with the old iPhone content (hers).
EDIT: here's the link: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141
However, I would think that the Apple Store that is replacing the iPhone would be able to transfer the content, also.

Time Machine Locked after MacBook Air reformatted. My MacBook Air was overfull due to an Address book issue (duplication) so after many attempts to clear space, I ended up wiping out the system and reloading Lion.

Time Machine Locked after MacBook Air reformatted. My MacBook Air was overfull due to an Address book issue (duplication) so after many attempts to clear space, I ended up wiping out the system and reloading Lion. This resulted in the Time Machine thinking that it was now connected to a different computer. Apparently this diables the existing information.
Now I can see that the back-ups exist (back to Sept 2012) but they are greyed out, therefore unavailale to restore. Again, this seems like an issue that shouldn't be happening. The whole point of the Time Machine is to enable reinstatement of data after catastrophic failure. What if my computer actually had to be replaced due to a hardware issue? How would I beableto restore anything?
The path already (unsuccessfully) taken;
Open Library on the computer, Open Time Machine, Select Correct date, drill down to correct data you wish to restore, click "Restore".
This did not work because the correct date was greyed out. Restore key was greyed out.

Time Machine Locked after MacBook Air reformatted. My MacBook Air was overfull due to an Address book issue (duplication) so after many attempts to clear space, I ended up wiping out the system and reloading Lion. This resulted in the Time Machine thinking that it was now connected to a different computer. Apparently this diables the existing information.
Now I can see that the back-ups exist (back to Sept 2012) but they are greyed out, therefore unavailale to restore. Again, this seems like an issue that shouldn't be happening. The whole point of the Time Machine is to enable reinstatement of data after catastrophic failure. What if my computer actually had to be replaced due to a hardware issue? How would I beableto restore anything?
The path already (unsuccessfully) taken;
Open Library on the computer, Open Time Machine, Select Correct date, drill down to correct data you wish to restore, click "Restore".
This did not work because the correct date was greyed out. Restore key was greyed out.

How do I move/copy contacts from Entourage to iCloud Address Book without creating duplicates? Address Book on Mac, iCloud, iPhone and iPad is now empty

How do I move/copy contacts from Entourage to iCloud Address Book without creating duplicates? Address Book on Mac, iCloud, iPhone and iPad is now empty

Thank you for letting me know!
Going to give it a go. Had a back up of all my clients files stupidly not my software as I have the originals disks. Just realised that amongst the software is ibiz and have lost al my accounting and billing files for the last 7 years want to cry so losing my contacts now will really tip me over the edge!
Fingerscrossed this works!

Address book entries don't sync to iPhone

There appears to be a category of entries in my Address Book that don't sync to my iPhone 4S. Instead of having the word "Work" or "Home" in front of the email address, it contains "email 1", "email 2", etc. Editing the item doesn't reveal "Work" or "Home". Any ideas on how to fix this?

Those contacts probably live in a Microsoft Exchange address book.
Click on the red "book mark" in Address Book to display the lists of contacts in the left-hand page, and see if you have an Exchange server configured (it would show up under an "On My Mac" section, with a name configured in Address Book preferences).
You can either configure your iPhone to communicate with the Exchange server, or drag those contacts into the "All on My Mac" category (or another contact group on your Mac).
Hope this helps!

Any ideas why my address book is out of sync with iCloud

I migrated my mobile me to icloud a few days ago. I started with the website, verified that my iOS versions were correct on my iPhone and iPad. Then I turned the service on for my mac, iphone and ipad. The only choice I had was to merge my contacts with icloud, so I accepte it. I have 5,815 contacts. My address book backup is 367MB. Ever since I turned this on, they have been out of sync. iCloud shows 2,355 contacts and my iphone is not update. Also, it took "my card" and seemed to combine it with another business entry I had.
Bottom line, sync is not working and my Mac goes to 100% CPU ever 8 minutes. My system drops to a crawl and I have to wait for it to finish. iCal, Mail and Address book are consuming all the CPU as it seems to be trying to sync. But nothing ever works.
This is very similar to what happened when I turned on MobileMe sync. It completely screwed up my address book and caused a $1200 phone bill while I was traveling in Europe because it would erase my entire address book and try to sync it over and over again.
I just turned off the iclould sync for address book my mac so I could work on my laptop without the CPU going to 100%.
Any ideas?

Welcome to the Apple Community.
It sounds as though you may have exceeded some of the limits of Address Book in iCloud.
Total number of contact cards: 25,000
Maximum size of a contact card: 256 KBMaximum size of a contact photo: 224 KB
Maximum size of a contact group: 256 KB
Maximum size of all contact cards:
Card text: 24 MB
Card photos: 100 MB
Supported file types for a contact photo: JPEG, JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF

I had duplicates in ical and address book. i got all deleted, but now when i import ical that was backed up, it goes away in a few seconds. my address book still has duplicates.

I have a mobileMe account. I had duplicates in my address book and ical. I got all deleted and tried to import info back. Now my mac will import ical saved file in .icbu for only a few seconds and my address book still has duplicates.

Not sure why, but now I have two of everything. GREATTTTTTT.

Address Book Server will not sync all fields with iOS client

Hello,
I am getting really frustrated with my Mac Mini Server.
Apparently, the Address Book Server DOES NOT sync all fields.
Only standard vCard-fields seem to synced.
I have not successfully synced user-defined fields, such as an additional date.
Any ideas / infos on how to achieve this if this possible at all?
Thanks for the input,
Erasmus
One thing: I posted the same question in the "Lion" (non-server) discussion - sorry for any confusion.
One thing I noticed:
All changes made on the server in the OS X Address Book are distributed to two iOS clients (iPod 4th Gen iOS4 iPhone 3GS iOS 4).
Any help is appreciated.

Sorry for answering myself...
I just found out that after editing the newly distributed entry on an iOS4-Client, some fields on the server are deleted!
Erasmus

I upgraded to 10.7.4, to upgrade to iCloud. And ever since the upgrade to iCloud, my iCal, Address book, etc. won't sync to my iPhone.

I upgraded to 10.7.4, to upgrade to iCloud. And ever since the upgrade to iCloud, my iCal, Address book, etc. won't sync to my iPhone. My iMAC does sync with my MacBook Pro but not to my iPhone. What do I do? And though my iMac sync to my MacBook Pro, there is a little problem. My iCal shows let's say 9 AM in my iMAC, it shows 8 AM in the MacBook Pro. The scheduling in the iCAL is a bet of a mess eer since of the upgrade.
PLEASE HELP ME SOMEBODY PLEASE!!!

To sync to your iPhone, you need to check iCloud requirements to be sure your iPhone is compatible with iCloud and your iPhone software is up to date.
You also need to make sure iCloud is enabled on the iPhone.
And you need to make sure the iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi in order to sync.
For the time difference, be sure the time settings on each device is the same with time zone and daylight saving time the same setting on each.

Address book issues: duplicates and syncing to phone

I know this is a common problem, and why Apple cannot offer a better solution, or system, is frustrating.
The problem is basically multiple entries in my address book.
I know the issue has to do with icloud, but I cannot figure out how to eliminate the multiple entries without going one by one and deleting.
And I hestiate to do this because I am afraid they will come back.
Frankly, I am very frustrated with icloud.
As far as I am concerned it has caused more problems than it is worth.
I am ready to disable it totally.
Problem is, if I do that now, then all of my contacts in my address boook disappear.
Part of the problem,. I know, is that I still have a mobilme account, and somehow I have two icloud accounts.
Question: is there any way to merge my two icloud accounts, so I opnly have one.
Or can I just delete one? If so, how?
Another problem, I cannot get my addresses on my mac to appear in my iphone(4).
I have tried selecting the sync option to replace all addresses on my iphone, one time, with the addresses on the computer, but it doesn't work.
Certain addresses on my computer do not appear on my phone.
The other day, I went to my phone to call a contact andf found I had about 6 entries for every contact.
I had to go in and disable a bunch of accounts, and finally got back to onbe set, but now some contacts are missing.
Why a simple solution to eliminate showing duplicate entries cannot be found is frustrating.
Seems simple to me: if the info is duplicated, don't show it.
Seems like this simpkle rule could also apply to alerts: everytime I get an alert on my phone, it shows up 5 or 6 times in a row.
But that's another post.......

Great.
I think the TM restore would have been much quicker. I was under the assumption that everything was good on the Mac address book.
Not sure what happened since then. Did you read my post (at 2:01pm above) before things went wrong?
"Try this. Disable iCloud on your mac. Select to keep contacts on the computer when quiting. Verify address book contains all your contacts. If you don't have a backup such as TM, export address book contacts so you will have a backup.
Your address book should have been correct or you could have corrected the contacts then and you would have had the backup files exported if you didn't have or trust TM.
Go to the iCloud website and delete all contacts there.
At the iCloud website, you should have been able to select all addresses at one time and delete. That would have left no addresses in iCloud. Only addresses left should have been on your Mac from the last step.
Once done, go back and log into iCloud on your computer and merge the contacts. The website should now contain the addresses from your address book.
Unless something else was wrong and creating multiple contacts, the only addresses in iCloud would have been merged from what was in your address book on your computer.
I don't know what happened or where we went wrong. I'll check back in the morning if you post any other info.
Hope it works out.

Address Book/Contacts/Google/iPhone Sync = Tons of Duplicates?

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

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

ICloud Address Book and Calendar not syncing. Missing and duplicate entries. Help.

I have duplicate entries in Address Book. I have missing entries on other devices. For calendar it just doesn't sync.
What I've done to try to fix it:
1) I signed out of all my devices from iCloud and MobileMe.
2) I then deleted all the the cache files in Library and any iCloud folders I could
3) I deleted all the address book and calendar entries on each device.
4) Went back and deleted anything in Library and caches.
5) I looked at iClould.com and confirmed they had entries in Address Book and Calendar.
6) Signed back into iCloud on each device.
7) All the devices then began to populate.
Trouble began:
1) Some Address Book entries are missing on devices.
2) iClould has multiple entries for the very missing contacts! All cutting off the notes field at different places!
3) It won't sync the missing contacts present on iCloud but not the device.
Help.

Solved it myself. What I did:
1) I have four Lion OS and two iOS devices.
2) I kept one computer with the complete address book I wanted to start with but disconnecting it from iCloud's Contact sync via Apple Menu > System Preferences > iCloud uncheck Contact Sync
3) Logged into iCloud.com and deleted all the contacts and groups manually ( many keyboard shortcuts worked )
4) On the main computer, using textedit, I replaced semicolons I was using to delimit items in the notes field with backslashes.
5) Once I confirmed all the other computers and devices had no entries in Address Book, on the main computer I turned back on iCloud Contact syncing. It worked. Correct count of entries and no more breaking notes at the semicolons!
6) Immediately all the other iCloud computers and devices updated to the correct notes! Finally.

Address book issues - duplicates - accounts don't match

I have found duplicates entries for some of my address book entries, but not all.
As previously discussed in these forums, this turned out to be duplicates between the "On my Mac" and "iCloud" accounts. So I can deal with that.
However, upon looking at entries between these 2 accounts, I noticed that I have some entries in each account that are not present in the other account.
Here is a "made up" example to illustrate:
On My Mac
Johnny Appleseed
Jim Cogsworth
Bob Jones
Jason Smith
iCloud
Johnny Appleseed
Robert Blabla
Bob Jones
Amy Thomas
So from this example, I have:
2 contacts in both accounts: Johnny Appleseed & Bob Jones
2 contacts only "on my mac": Jim Cogsworth, Jason Smith
2 contact only in "iCloud": Robert Blabla, Amy Thomas
This is what I have found on my Mac, only it is far bigger than just a couple of contacts.
Is there any way to get the accounts in sync?
Or is there any way to move a contact from one account to another account?
Running 10.7.5 due to 3rd party software incompatibilites with Mt. Lion.

Great.
I think the TM restore would have been much quicker. I was under the assumption that everything was good on the Mac address book.
Not sure what happened since then. Did you read my post (at 2:01pm above) before things went wrong?
"Try this. Disable iCloud on your mac. Select to keep contacts on the computer when quiting. Verify address book contains all your contacts. If you don't have a backup such as TM, export address book contacts so you will have a backup.
Your address book should have been correct or you could have corrected the contacts then and you would have had the backup files exported if you didn't have or trust TM.
Go to the iCloud website and delete all contacts there.
At the iCloud website, you should have been able to select all addresses at one time and delete. That would have left no addresses in iCloud. Only addresses left should have been on your Mac from the last step.
Once done, go back and log into iCloud on your computer and merge the contacts. The website should now contain the addresses from your address book.
Unless something else was wrong and creating multiple contacts, the only addresses in iCloud would have been merged from what was in your address book on your computer.
I don't know what happened or where we went wrong. I'll check back in the morning if you post any other info.
Hope it works out.

Address book issues; excessive duplicates, syncing, ...

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