Contacts keep disappearing from Address Book

I have a problem that's driving me nuts. I am building subscriber lists but when I send out my newsletter, I started getting responses that people had missed out. So I checked and people I knew I had added to my Address Book Groups weren't there.
I spilt the group into two when it got to around 300 because I thought that might help.
Then I realised that Add To Address Book wasn't working from Mail's email address data detectors – it opens AB but doesn't add them, so then I went all the way back through and manually added the last few weeks worth.
Next day, however, all the new ones were gone. So I turned off MobileMe synccing and did it again. (Even so, that was set to use the MBP as the base, not vice versa.) Next day, all gone again (I shut down every night). I added the number to the group names so I could quickly check (dragging a list of addresses gives you an instant count).
Even more explicably, today the group names had reverted to the previous counts – and the previous names, even! Mb A-K 140 and MB L0Z 127, when the actual counts should be 152 and 146 (luckily I had exported V-cards with the manually added addresses in them).
What is going on?! I had deleted AB plists too – no difference. I do have an iPhone with Push turned on.

Hey Barney-15E, you did a great job!
The phenomena in my case were a little different from the thread you mentioned, but after all it was Repair Permissions function (using Disk Utility) that made it all working stable again.
Thanks again!

Similar Messages

Contacts disappearing from address book

random contacts keep disappearing from my address book.
i am syncing 2 computers, 2 ipads and 1 iphone with the cloud. running 10.8.2, build 12C60, all of my iOS devices are up to date.
i will get a text from someone (on my phone) and their name will not show up, just their number. this is a person who i know was in my address book, but has now mysteriously vanished (from all devices and when i log into icloud.com).
this happened to me this morning, i added that person back to my address book via add contact in messages on my phone. now they show up in all address books.
i decided to try to restore from time machine. i deleted my current address book, deleted the cache, and turned off icloud syncing.
i went back in my time machine to more than a week ago.
i replaced the bad address book folder with the the time machine address book folder.
i launched address book.
i search for the missing person,
they are not there as they used to be, but the data that i added back this morning (minus all the other information that used to be in my address book about them, such as their address, etc.) is there.
how is that possible if i am not syncing with the cloud yet?????
and more importantly, where are my addresses going??
any help is greatly appreciated, this is driving me nuts!

I don't mean to add confusion to your problem Stephaniemiami, but hopefully my problem is possibly related closely enough that a solution to it from one of the very knowledgeable contributors here may assist your own.
I've just installed Leopard 5.1 then immediately upgraded to 5.2 whereupon my previously faultless address book (Tiger) stopped functioning.
Launching from the dock results in the icon freezing (no bounce and no AB), but the app name itself shows in the menubar. Another click on the static icon and the AB appears. However, though all of my contact's names are visible (groups et al) as expected, there is no additional data at all for any of them. I can click on and highlight any name I wish but no relevant card or info appears; the "edit" button on the window does not respond to clicking either.
I'm about to give Austin Kinsella1's suggestion to you for myself, as some others here have.

HT204150 I have just set up icloud and all my contacts are duplicated from Address Book! My new iPhone is also showing duplicate contacts even though they are not duplicated in my address book on my computer. Please can you help

I have just set up icloud and all my contacts are duplicated from Address Book! My new iPhone is also showing duplicate contacts even though they are not duplicated in my address book on my computer. Please can you help?

Also, what are the source of your contacts? are they created on the phone, or you synced from yahoo/hotmail etc.
If thats the case, the circular arrow wont be visible but instead show "groups"
Contacts from different accounts are not synced to iCloud.

Contacts disappear from address book but in messages

Hi,
I have an iphone 3g which I had unlocked by the network in Australia and have since moved back to the UK.
Since placing a UK sim card (o2) in the iphone whenever I add a new contact to my phone book, it does not display in the Phones contact list. However it does show if i search under my messages, and I can then make a call to the number this way.
A slight but not idea work around is to call the number and then add it to my favorites in address book. Does anyone know why this is happening ? I thought it maybe saving on my sim but have since read that iPhones cannot write to the sim.. Thx

So in fact Address Book synchronizes with iCloud only, not locally on the Mac.
And when I sync with iPhone, it syncs with the Mac and not with iCloud.
No better way t have non updated Address Book.
I suspect this is another Apple ID mess. Apple resembles Land Rover here (never could properly
update my Address Book in my GPS contacts from my iPhone)

Contacts disappeared from Address Book...backup anywhere

I turned on my computer this morning and opened Mail to send out a message. I began typing an address only to find that Mail was not suggesting the address like it usually does. I opened Address Book and all my contacts were completely wiped.
I went into my .Mac account online and they were still there, only the account said it had last synced in April. I have had my system, set to Autosync for quite some time. Apparently in never synced those. I tried syncing it downward back to Address Book and it never filled up. Additionally, I have added many contacts since April and those are not on .Mac. A couple of days ago, I had to take my computer down to another office where I had to work for a couple of days and then I had to bring it back home last night. That is the only thing I have done since I last used my Address Book.
The last time I rememebered using it was yesterday at that other office. I was very careful last night when bringing it home. Does anybody have any idea what could have happened? And also, if there is an auto backup that Address Book puts somewhere? Please help!!!

That's the other weird part to this whole mess. When I reset the sync data for the Address Book and told it to overwrite the computer with .Mac, it never downloads even a single item. Furthermore, I have noticed a problem for about 3 months now when I click on my iDisk icon in the Finder I get the following error message:
The volume for "iDisk" cannot be found.
I have updated everything and this is still happening. .Mac hasn't really been up to what it was supposed to be the last few months. Especially when it said that my online addressbook had not been synced since April when I have had it set to auto since then, and have made many additions.

Deleting contacts or groups from address book impossible

How can I delete contacts or groups from my address book? The corresponding menu items "delete contact" or "delete group" are greyed. Pressing the "delete" buttom only works for contacts. But the deleted contact isn't really erased. There remains an untitled contact at the end of the list that I cannot delete. Not very nice :-(
Does anybody knows some help?

I can't recreate that on my Mac, so I suspect something got corrupted in your preferences.
Quit Contacts.
Go to your Finder "Go" menu hold the option key to choose "Library".
Then go to yor Preferences folder and and drag com.apple.AddressBook.plist to your Desktop.
Relaunch Contacts and test.

Can you be selective in what contacts you sync from Address Book to your iPhone?

Good morning/afternoon everyone.
On my MacBook Pro, I have both business and personal phone numbers and addresses stored in my Address Book.
I would only like to sync certain people to my iPhone. Does any one know if this is possible??

Yes it is using Groups. In your Address Book on your MacBook Pro create a new "Group" by clicking the "+" on the bottom of the "Groups" column. I created a "Friends" group and a "Co-Workers" group and a "Family" group.
Now that you have your new group/s add the contacts you want to that group.
Now once you have your Address Book organized go into iTunes with your iPhone connected. Click on your iPhone under the Devices section of iTunes. Now goto "Info" and check "Sync Address Book Contacts". Under there select "Selected groups" and choose the new groups you created. Sync and done.

Why do my downloaded books keep disappearing from i book on my iPad 2?, why do my downloaded books keep disappearing from i book on my iPad 2?

why can i not finish a book i've downloaded to my iPad 2? i started reading a book on ibooks yesterday and bookmarked my place. now today it wouldn't open it and said it could not connect to itunes (which is wrong i can open itunes). then all of the books on ibooks disappeared (just empty bars like it is trying to download). why they were all there yesterday and working fine. i've had this problem for a couple of weeks now. i just downloaded the new updates for iPad yesterday but obviously it did not fix my problem. why does this keep happening and how can this be fixed so i can read a book without wondering if it will still be there when i get back to it? help! please!

I personally think the disappearing files are caused by flaky/slow internet connection.
I always make sure files are uploaded to the cloud before I close the app.

Contact disappeared from iPhone but not deleted from Address Book on sync

FYI, I have an iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2 (the latest), and I have never so much as thought about MobileMe.
Until two days ago, I have had no reason to doubt that my iPhone's Contact list is the same as my MacBook's Address Book list. I now have no confidence that the same info. exists in both: I know for sure that at least one contact long present in both has disappeared from the iPhone, yet syncing all contacts neither returns it to the iPhone nor deletes it from Address Book! I need help troubleshooting this contact as well as verifying that there aren't other similar anomalies corrupting my data, hopefully without manually comparing all 685 entries...
Two days ago, a certain number, let's call it (310) 555-5555, popped up in my recents list as a missed call and in my visual voicemail. When I listened to the voicemail, I discovered that (310) 555-5555 was Jane Smith. I remembered entering Jane Smith several months ago, so I thought hmmm, does she have a second number? I tried to add (310) 555-5555 to an existing entry, only to find my iPhone had no entry for Jane Smith anymore at all! I did not delete her myself, and I'm not aware of any 3rd-party app that ought to have affected the entry. I haven't called Jane Smith or (310) 555-5555 in quite some time, so I have no idea how long the entry may have been missing. I searched the whole phone (left of the first home screen)
At the next opportunity, I looked in Address Book on my laptop, and indeed found the expected entry for Jane Smith, (310) 555-5555. I have no idea how she disappeared from my iPhone -- did I or some third-party program delete her? Or did it happen through some sync issue? -- but I naturally worried that when I next synced, the deletion would sync, too, and I would lose the Address Book entry, leaving me without Jane Smith's number at all.
Such an event would defeat the entire purpose of backing up my phone contacts to my computer; I just moved to iPhone this spring after being a Palm user since 1997, and the idea that iPhone might not be reliably syncing my contacts is frankly terrifying. I checked and saw that my Address Book listed 685 contacts to iPhone Contacts's 684, so I decided to risk a sync in hopes that maybe I had caused a one-off deletion. I wrote down Jane Smith (310) 555-5555 just in case and hit sync.
The results of the sync and my subsequent troubleshooting have seriously undermined my confidence in the fidelity of the sync process. The first time, nothing changed--I still had 684 iPhone, no Jane Smith, and 685 Address Book, including Jane Smith.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Message was edited by: Lindsey Worth

Before conecting your phone, open iTunes on your computer and go to Preferences, on the Devices tab check "Prevent...from syncing automatically". Now connect your phone and when it appears in iTunes on the left sidebar click on its name. Go to the Info tab and confirm than your have checked Sync Contacts with Address Book. Now further down on the Info tab under Advanced>Replace information on this iPhone check Contacts. Click Apply and sync your phone. This will replace the contacts on your phone with the contacts in Address Book. (When complete you can go back to iTunes preferences and uncheck "Prevent..." to re-establish automatic syncing if your prefer this.)

Sync between MacBookPro and iPhone 3G does not sync properly. Calendars duplicate events but worse is that only contacts from Address book from letter T onwards sync. Any contacts on iPhone which are not on Mac are lost during sync.

Sync between MacBookPro and iPhone 3G does not sync properly. Calendars duplicate events but worse is that only contacts from Address book from letter T onwards sync. Any contacts on iPhone which are not on Mac are lost during sync.
Solutions?

No, I never really found an easy solution. I believe it is an issue with some corruption in the iTunes database on the specific device. In my case, both my iPad and iPhone now show duplicate stream songs if viewed through iTunes on my Mac, but they show different songs. A couple years ago I had a similar issue on my iPhone, and Apple support suggested I back up the phone, completely reset it, and then restore it from the backup. It did work, so I imagine it would probably work for my current issues with the iPhone and iPad. But resetting and restoring an iPad or iPhone always makes me a little nervous that something will get lost. When I did reset/restore the iPhone, I do have to say, the restore process was 100% perfect and I did not lose any data at all even though Apple support said I might. If you try to go that route, I would suggest backing the device up both to a computer through iTunes, and to the iCloud so that you have a double backup.
None of this really resolves the issue with how the iTunes databases are becoming corrupted on the apple devices though, so it is very likely to happen again until they fix it. I have been unable to determine if there were any specific actions or conditions which caused the corruption to happen in the first place.
Might be worth another call to Apple support, or dropping in the local Apple store if you have one near by.

How do I share a contact from Address Book via email?

I am trying to send email address details in a Mailing list from my Address Book to a colleague. I have tried going to Attachment option but doesn't include option to attach from Address Book. Also tried copying so that I can paste into the body of the email without success. How can I share these contact details please?
Thanks

What does your correspondent need or want?
One well established standard for exchanging contact information is the vCard which encapsulates many of the commonly used fields in a Contact entry.
If a vCard suits you and your correspondent, this add-on:
https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html
has a nifty feature for sending vCards as attachments. Then your correspondent can probably just add it to his address book. If you copy out single details, like name, address, email address phone no, then the other person has to insert each one into his address book by hand.
If you open the Mailing List in your Address Book, you can probably drag each item out into the body of a new email message. But that's more work than necessary for you and for the recipient, who will need to add each one manually to his address book.
With this add-on, you should be able to open the Mailing List by selecting it in the Address Book, then use ctrl+a to select all, then right-click and select "Send as vCard"; it will open a new message with all the selected Contacts attached.
Lists in general don't have a standard presentation, so a List in one email client is only rarely useful in another. If you both use Thunderbird, you could use this add-on to export the List to a .tha or .thm file which another Thunderbird user could import.

How do i add contacts from address book to iPhone using itunes 11.0.2

how do i add contacts from address book to iPhone using itunes 11.0.2

Check the manual http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf, but it is done via the syncing process with iTunes or iCloud.

Export contact photos from Address Book [REPOST]

Exporting contact photos from Address Book in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is a simple drag-and-drop to iPhoto or Finder. The picture is saved as a TIFF. However, in 10.5 Leopard, dragging the contact photo is non-responsive in both viewing and editing mode.
How do you export contact photos from address book in Leopard?

I dont believe you can. The address book usually makes use of photos already available on your drive, such as those in your iphoto libraryd, or the login icons, etc. Perhaps the lack of drag and drop is something they unintentionally left out, in which case you can request it by sending Apple feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Drag and drop Contact from Address Book to Pages Document on iPad

On OS X MacBook and iMac I can use Drag and drop Contact functionality from Address Book directly on a Pages document. In Pages I have setup Merge fields to merge values from my Contacts. This works great!
I would also like to use this in Pages on my iPad mini. I know Pages on iOS are different from Pages for OS X, but I wonder if there is any possibility for me to open OS X created Pages document with Merge fields on iPad's Pages and replace existing Contacts values with new one from Address Book?
It seems like Pages on iOS even don't recognise Merge fields that I have created on OS X at all.

Are you dragging directly from one application and dropping into the other? What happens if you export to vcf card then import the vcf card with the other application?

Can I retrieve deleted contacts from Address book

Can I retrieve deleted contacts from address book on my mac or contact list on my iphone?

Yes if you have been backing up using Time Machine it should be pretty simple. If you haven't been backing up then they're gone.

Contacts keep disappearing from Address Book

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for