Cannot restore address book

I recently reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Tiger on my computer. Before doing this I copied my home folder to a spare hard drive. Now I'm in the process of reloading and importing everything. I'm not able to find a way to restore my address book. "Import" and "Revert to Address Book Backup" in the File menu can't locate this data. I can sucessfully spotlight search any single contact on the backed up data volume so I know that the data is there but spotlight doesn't tell me where. I did manage to find "Address Book Person Data" in Library/caches/com.apple.Address Book/Metadata and I think that's where it is but dont know how to import it into my address book. Any suggestions?

No, that should have been sufficient. Make sure that you have it in the right folder - your home directory/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. Also you could check to see if either of the other files is significantly larger - if so, move the .data file to the Desktop and rename the larger one to .data.
AK

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Error message "cannot open address book file" thunderbird freezes

If I try to write an e-mail i get an error message "cannot open address book file". Then the program freezes, and I can not close the page, and none of the features of thunderbird works.

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Help with restoring Address Book from Time Machine

Problem: I really, really need to retrieve someone's number. I know it'll be in an old version of my Address Book. I can see when I open time Machine that my address book is backed up, but no matter the date I go to, it says the Address Book was last modified in 2012! I know for a fact I've updated (and backed up) the Address Book many times since then.
Whenever I try to restore the Address Book, I do Time Machine > Applications > Address Book > 'restore'. But whenever I do this, the mac refuses to open the restored Address Book because it's 'required by mac OS X'.
I don't understand.
Please, how on earth do I dredge my Address Book from the depths of Time Machine?
Please help!
M

Hello mb9236,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with restoring a contact from Time Machine.
It sounds like you are trying to restore the Address Book application. The Address Book application is just the application and does not include the content in Address Book.
Instead, you will want to open Address Book and then launch Time Machine and restore your contacts from there. Use the steps below to restore your contacts form a previous date (in step one instead of opening Mail or Finder, be sure you have Address Book open and in focus):
If you use Time Machine to back up your computer, you can easily bring back one or more items you’ve lost, or recover older versions of files you’ve changed.
Open a window for the item you want to restore. For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock, or open the Time Machine menu in the menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine. If you back up to a Time Capsule or other network disk, a message briefly appears while Time Machine connects your computer to the backup disk.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the snapshots and backups Time Machine created. Gray tick marks on the timeline represent snapshots stored on your internal drive (portable computers only). Pink tick marks represent backups stored on your backup disk.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it. The windows in Time Machine behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, and then click Restore. You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk. The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
You can use Time Machine from within many applications. For example, you can open Address Book and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to recover contacts you may have accidentally deleted, or open iPhoto and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to view past versions of your iPhoto albums.
OS X Lion: Restore items backed up with Time Machine
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH4256
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Restore Address Book from Time Machine

if i lost all my address book data, is there a way to restore it from a date in time machine that has my data?
shouldnt there be a simple way in addres book to select a time machine backup?

To restore address book data from Time Machine, launch the Address Book application, then click on the Time Machine icon in the dock. Within the Time Machine user interface, you'll be looking at an Address Book window that displays the data it had at the time of the Time Machine backup. You can go back in time to find a particular contact to restore, or you can choose the Restore All option.

Cannot open address book...

something has happen to my address book. every time I try to open, I get a dialogue box "cannot open address book because it is not supported on this architecture.' please help.

One thing at a time.
A media file in an email. What type of a file? Was the email from a trusted source?
Unfortunately WMA and WMV files CAN carry malicious code in them (viruses-like). They SHOULD NOT affect the OS X, but the world is spinning fast...
The app icon - I meant go to the Applications folder, find the Address Book application and click on it one to select it.
COMMAND + i - Command is the key next to the space bar (the one with a "clover" type of a symbol and command written at the bottom). Hold the Command key and tap "i" - this shows the Info box, and General is at the very top.
Keep us posted please.

How do i erase a corrupt contact list from iCloud,iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro and restore Address Book backup to all devices and cloud?

how do i erase a corrupt contact list from iCloud,iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro and restore Address Book backup to all devices and cloud?
I saved a corrected, most up to date version of my master Address Book Contacts as a back-up on my Mac Book Pro.
then in an effort to "simplify my life" i attempted to sync my I phone contacts - ( pre clean-up version) with my clean list on Mac Book Pro, New I pad and newly available icloud. DUH!! Using iTunes to do the sync caused the clean MacBOOK Pro list to be commingled with the dirty iphone contacts. amd now the whole mess is in the cloud.
I need to clear out the contaminated lists from all iplaces, and startover with Back-up on my macbook pro. BUT HOW???
Help
Karen

I had exported an address book backup: abbu
so since i wrote, i have found my way into the cloud: selected all entries - deleted them all from the cloud.
This wiped out contacts on my iphone and i pad, and MBP, as well as on the cloud. I then imported the abbu back into my now empty address book.
To repopulate the crowd, i selected all in my address book and created a single card vCard for export to my desktop. I then dragged that vcard into my empty cloud. Now my cloud has the same clean contacts as my MBP addressbook. The cloud then pushed the clean contacts into my empty ipad and iphone contacts.
I had to go back to Address Book>preferences>Accounts and Add an I cloud account - but if you accidentally create a second i cloud account - all of a sudden your address book will duplicate itself. I quickly reversed it by deleting one of the icloud accounts in my Address Book>preferences>Accounts.
I created a new entry on my MBP and it is now on all devices and in cloud
I also created a new entry on my iPhone and it is now in the address book on my MBP.
I feel empowered!!
Have i missed anything??

Cannot access address book after software update

I am unable to access the default address book after doing the software update - I restored my backup and everything is there except for my contacts. When I open my address book it is labeled personal and there are no addresses and when I add a contact it does not show up, but I noticed when I go into options it shows only default under address books with 99 entries and when I try to add a contact it does not show in the list on my phone but the number of entries in the default book goes up so they are going into that one but I cannot access it? Any idea how I can get my contact list back? (hope this makes sense to someone )
Thank you
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Sdgardne, thank you so much! Using your post and links I was able to restore my address book after upgrading my software and having trouble with my address book. And I am very technologically challenged so I appreciate having something I could understand and follow.

IPhone cannot sync address book, "too many flushes" in console

Hello, ran into this recently and its driving me nuts. I've restored the phone twice, without restoring a backup, setting it up as a new phone each time.
It'll sync everything else fine but not this. I have reset the sync history in isync, deleted my address book completely (I have a backup of it) yet iTunes still shows the old groups under the info tab. I've double checked that I am the owner on the permissions page of the mail/ical/itunes/etc.... folders in %users/Library. Repaired permissions. I'm running out of things to check.
Whenever I try to sync this is the information that can be found in the Console. I've deleted preferences, i'm almost ready to completely blow itunes away and re-import/re-rate my itunes library from scratch!
2/27/10 1:19:44 PM AddressBookSync[804] [111520] |Miscellaneous|Error| SyncServices assertion failure (_flushCount > 0) in [ISDClientState enableFlush], /SourceCache/SyncServices2/SyncServices2-578/SyncServices/ISDClientState.m:181 too many enableFlushes
2/27/10 1:19:44 PM com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[799] 2010-02-27 13:19:44.891 AddressBookSync[804:903] [111520] |Miscellaneous|Error| SyncServices assertion failure (_flushCount > 0) in [ISDClientState enableFlush], /SourceCache/SyncServices2/SyncServices2-578/SyncServices/ISDClientState.m:181 too many enableFlushes
2/27/10 1:19:44 PM AddressBookSync[804] AddressBookSync (client id: com.apple.AddressBook) error: Exception running AddressBookSync: [ISDClientState enableFlush]: too many enableFlushes
2/27/10 1:19:44 PM com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[799] 2010-02-27 13:19:44.891 AddressBookSync[804:903] AddressBookSync (client id: com.apple.AddressBook) error: Exception running AddressBookSync: [ISDClientState enableFlush]: too many enableFlushes
I also cannot sync anything from the Info tab, contacts, calendars, can't replace the data either. If I enable iCal syncing it just hangs on the sync and doesn't error out. it'll stay syncing contacts for over 12 hours so far with no change.
Message was edited by: thirdgen89gta

Now isn't this interesting. I decided on a whim to have console open when I reset the sync preferences. And this is what it reported. Definitely some permissions errors. I've already run
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Warning| Resetting Sync Data - Including Clients and Schemas=NO
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |Server|Warning| Admin database corrupted. Resetting data directory.
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Bookmarks/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x1001a5320 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Calendars/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x1001b1860 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Contacts/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x1001a8ac0 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.dashboard.widgets/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x10019e0a0 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.dock.items/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x1001a8210 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Keychain/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x1001a9b60 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.MailAccounts/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x100505d60 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.MailConfiguration/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x10051a990 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Notes/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x100525f70 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Preferences/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x100511a90 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Error| Unable to remove /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.microsoft.entourage.Notes/data.syncdb, error was Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 UserInfo=0x10051b3d0 "“data.syncdb” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it."
2/27/10 3:26:06 PM SyncServer[769] [124bf0] |DataManager|Warning| resetSyncData: could not delete data reference directory: /Users/rr152510/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/DataReferences
2/27/10 3:26:09 PM AddressBookSync[787] [111540] |ISDRecordStore|Error| Unable to delete data reference <ISDDataWrapper[7621EBDE-367B-474C-9511-6635DA1605B9.com.apple.AddressBook.data ] signature=<23c511c0 58a95e02 5f839cb7 3e5a070a 104d4f50>>, error was Error Domain=ISyncDataWrapperError Code=2 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (ISyncDataWrapperError error 2.)"
2/27/10 3:26:09 PM com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[786] 2010-02-27 15:26:09.404 AddressBookSync[787:903] [111540] |ISDRecordStore|Error| Unable to delete data reference <ISDDataWrapper[7621EBDE-367B-474C-9511-6635DA1605B9.com.apple.AddressBook.data ] signature=<23c511c0 58a95e02 5f839cb7 3e5a070a 104d4f50>>, error was Error Domain=ISyncDataWrapperError Code=2 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (ISyncDataWrapperError error 2.)"
2/27/10 3:26:10 PM AddressBookSync[787] [111540] |Miscellaneous|Error| SyncServices assertion failure (_flushCount > 0) in [ISDClientState enableFlush], /SourceCache/SyncServices2/SyncServices2-578/SyncServices/ISDClientState.m:181 too many enableFlushes
2/27/10 3:26:10 PM AddressBookSync[787] AddressBookSync (client id: com.apple.AddressBook) error: Exception running AddressBookSync: [ISDClientState enableFlush]: too many enableFlushes
2/27/10 3:26:10 PM com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[786] 2010-02-27 15:26:10.964 AddressBookSync[787:903] [111540] |Miscellaneous|Error| SyncServices assertion failure (_flushCount > 0) in [ISDClientState enableFlush], /SourceCache/SyncServices2/SyncServices2-578/SyncServices/ISDClientState.m:181 too many enableFlushes
2/27/10 3:26:10 PM com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[786] 2010-02-27 15:26:10.976 AddressBookSync[787:903] AddressBookSync (client id: com.apple.AddressBook) error: Exception running AddressBookSync: [ISDClientState enableFlush]: too many enableFlushes
After running sudo chown -R rr152510 SyncServices/ from terminal I received the same errors. So either its not following through the sub-directories and changing the owner, or its something else. Gonna try it from the root user, though sudo should have given me permissions to do anything I wanted.

How to restoring address book

Ho do you restore your address book that is on gmail?

Bous wrote:
- when I open Finder and under Devices > Backup of ...me... MacBook Pro > two folder 1) containing backups from 08/23 - 11/30/08 (the backup sequence shown in TimeCapsule) and folder 2) contains backups 12/03/08 - 04/17/09.
The latter is the backup sequence I would like to show in TimeCapsule and use for restoring my address book: HOW CAN I CHANGE THE REFERENCE FOLDER OF TIMECAPSULE?
For some reason, TM has started a new sequence of backups. This is most common if you change your computer's name in System Preferences > Sharing, or after certain hardware repairs.
First, a caution: do NOT use the Finder to change or delete anything in a TM backup. And you cannot actually merge the two sets of backups.
To see and restore from the "other" set of backups, hold down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your menubar. The +Enter Time Machine+ option will change to +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ (not a very accurate title in this case). Then select your TC and you should see them in the normal fashion.

Restore Address book using Time Machine

Hello all.
While my Macbook Pro is being repaired, I would like to restore the Address Book from that laptop to my iMac. Can I do this? When I launch Time Machine on my iMac, and go to Address Book in the most recent backup, I cannot seem to click 'Restore'.
Thank you.

Your question has nothing to do with the AirPort Express (AX) nor with wireless networking. You probably should ask this question in the Time Machine discussion area.

Time Machine did not restore Address Book Contacts!!! HELP!!!

I have an iPhone. I had to get a new one because the old one was acting all weird after the latest update.
I have a MacBook. I had to reformat the hard drive so I can partition part of it off for Windows (for work, puke.)
When I reinstalled Leopard on my MacBook, I uploaded the information from the latest back-up on Time Machine. This did not, however, restore my contacts. I have a metadata folder which contains a lot of files which are supposed to be people's information, but nothing will open these files. I really need my contacts back. Can someone help?
I ran Time Machine just about every day while my computer was home and just copied over my entire Library folder before reformatting my computer. Is the information somewhere in there? How do I get it back?
This is very frustrating. The applications and music and stuff came back fine, why not my contacts? This makes me doubt whether Time Machine is a reliable back-up.

i will try the restore all feature, but i already restored everything except applications and nothing came back. there were some old stuff that i didn't want restored (deleted files/programs) so i did not do that restore all.
when i open address book, then time machine, for some reason nothing shows up. my home folder was renamed in the process (perhaps without me knowing i was doing so.) would that matter? i can still access all the files through the backup, but i can't access address book through time machine and i cannot open the contact information in any programs. they are all there, but they won't open.

Cannot get Address Book on my iPod 2nd gen

If i try to remove icloud it just remove my original contact in my Mac, I am very upset at this because I cannot get my contact to sync with my address book on my iPod touch 2nd gen.
I will stay away from iCloud if I can and go back to the way I was until bugs get worked out, or when I understand the inner working or purpose of that mess that i am in.
I need to simply sync contacts from my Mac mini to my iPod manually if possible, I try every options in iTune.
Thanks for reading any clue is very welcome, I just buy a Mac mini and I am extremely happy. Hope this iCloud nightmare will get resolved.

What happens when you connect the iPod to your computer and try to restore via iTunes? Error message?

I upgraded to Snow Leopard, made a change to Address Book that I need to correct, tried to use Time Machine to find the prior version and it keeps pulling up the later ones info. How do I use Time Machine to restore Address Book from a few hours ago?

This morning, I upgraded to Snow Leopard from v10.5.8. Then, I exported 11 contacts from our old Now Contact database, intending to import that info into Address Book. It was an experiment, as we have 1199 contacts in 20+ categories and want to eventually get them into Bento from Address Book. The export automatically created a file called Export.vcf on the desktop, after I highlighted the 11 contacts. I tried to look at the info, but when clicked it opens Address Book, which then simply asked if I wanted to import the 11 contacts to it. I clicked yes. Then in checking Address Book 7, not 11 contacts appeared. I clicked on "All Contacts" and there were 1630. We only have 1199, so where did the extra 400+ come from? Since I had already clicked twice on the Address Book window, I couldn't undo the import. So I thought 'Ok, I'll trash Address Book and go to Time Machine, find Address Book, go to right after the upgrade to SL, hit Restore and bingo. Nope. I keep getting the post-import info, not pre. Con someone direct me to a solution? I want to get rid of the import contacts plus the extra 300 or so ( I already had a hundred or so in several categories)? Then, I need to figure out (1) why ALL the old records were exported from Now Contact, (2) where they were hiding in that .vcf file when Address Book recognized that I only wanted to export 11, (3) why Address Book showed only 7 imports in the "Last Import" group, but showed ALL my contacts in the "All Contact" group, even though they should nearly all have been safely untouched in the Now Contact DBase file. PS, I am not especially computer savvy. Thanks for any enlightenment.

Booting From Snow Leopard Installer Disc
1. Insert Snow Leopard Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Drive Preparation and Installation
1. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.

Backing Up And Restoring Address Book

To my dismay I have to completely reinstall my operating system, which happens to be OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4. I need to back-up my address book to my external hard drive and then put it back the way it was after the OS install. Can someone please walk me through the process? Keep in mind I need to retain my Groups. Thanks so much for any assistance.

Are you using Time Machine? If so, and you ensure you have an up-to-date backup, then you can just restore your home folder when Migration Assistant asks you, by using Time Machine. This is, by far, the best way to do this.
If you want to do it the hard way (and if you run into issues, maybe no support ) then back up your ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder, and restore it to your new install in the same location. The address book info is in there (named AddressBook-v22.abcddb likely), as well as some other folders that have things like image caches (what's displayed next to contacts in Mail).

How to restore Address Book and then add working iCloud Account?

OK i'm going insane trying to resolve this one.... all started with a shed load of Duplicates!
3 devices: MacBook Pro, iMac, iPhone 4S
I finally upgraded the MBP to 10.7.2, the iMac already was and the iPhone was already 5.0.1
I've held off moving to iCloud from Mobile.me because of the 10.6.x MBP
...so now all on the same song sheet, I clicked the upgrade to iCloud from my MBA and all went well!
The MBA pushed 1352 address cards to the iCloud and I only had the iCloud account showing in my Address Book.
My iPhone then happily went iCloud and downloaded ALL the calendars (and I have far too many....I'll clean up soon, promise ;-)
but i hadnt turned on Contact sync for a very good reason.
I DON'T WANT ALL MY CONTACTS ON MY iPHONE!
So having found some advice, it says you have to keep everything you dont want in iCloud, in the On My Mac account
(which I didnt appear to have at that point)
I turned my iMac on and connected to the iCloud, all went well and I again had a single iCloud account in Address Book with 1352 cards
I then went Address Book/Preferences/General/Deafult Account/On My Mac and it generated the empty On My Mac account in the Address Book.
Highlighting ALL my iCloud address cards and dragging them to On My Mac, a successful duplication was made.
Highlighting ALL my iCloud address cards and deleting, all three devices now had NO contacts in the iCloud related accounts (what I wanted)
I then turned on Contact sync on my iPhone and it pushed 186 contacts to the iCloud and in turn to all 3 devices (perfect!)
but then came the fun part....
On my iMac, the On My Mac account had gone from 1352 to over 1900 with loads of duplicates. So I selected ALL deleted and restored from an Address Book backup prior to going iCloud. This began my problem....
if I restore it WIPES the iCloud account from the machine and leaves me with 1352 in On My Mac,
if I try and add an iCloud account it then wants to upload the 1352 into the iCloud which I dont want.
If I delete all, setup iCloud acount first I get the 186 correctly, but the moment I restore from backup it overwrites and I'm again left with On My Mac and no iCloud account
AHHHHHH!
how on earth do I get the working iCloud with 186 (which is perfectly fine on 3 devices) and restore 1352 in ON MY MAC, so my iMac Address Book has two accounts very seperate from each other. I want the 186 on my MacBook Pro and iPhone, but I want an iCloud account with 186 and an On My Mac with 1352 on the iMac
ANY advice welcome
TIA

Thanks havinabubble for your assistance. I'm having all sorts of problems with iCloud because we've got iphone 3g's which means the iCloud is working on our mac and ipads but not on our iphones. I've been trying to solve this problem for days and I lost my "on my mac account" along the way. Once I followed your section where you gave directions how to "generate the empty On My Mac account" I was able to re-establish my contacts list on my mac. Your suggestion was very valuable. Thank you.
havinabubble wrote:
SOLVED!
thanks to a bit of sleep and https://discussions.apple.com/message/17282476#17282476
cheers to Winston Churchill who's post gave me the solution!
with On My Mac selected, highlight and DRAG TO DESKTOP
then highlight ALL and DELETE ALL
add the iCloud account which replaces ALL contacts with the 186 from the iCloud.
select Address Book/Preferences/General/Default Account/On My Mac and it generates the empty On My Mac account in the Address Book.
DRAG the 1352 back into On My Mac account
now have two accounts...
PROBLEM SOLVED, thanks Winston!

Cannot restore address book

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