IChat deleted Address Book contents during .Mac sync?

This evening, my iChat app froze during a .Mac sync. I gave it a minute or two to try to "thaw", but since that didn't happen, I force quit it. When it restarted it, all my contact names were gone, reverted to their regular AIM names.
Of course, this was after iChat give me the initial setup windows, as if the computer was brand new.
It turns out that my entire Address Book contents had been wiped, the only address card present being the info I supplied about myself in the iChat setup dialogue!

First, Close Address Book
Open ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. (~ = your home folder)
Create an archive of AddressBook.data.previous
Then, log into .mac and see if your Addresses are still available in your online Address Book. If so, open your dot mac preferences, go to Advanced, and do a "Reset Sync Data" allowing your .mac address book to overwrite your local address book.
If your Addresses are not available online:
Open ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. (~ = your home folder)
Drag AddressBook.data to your desktop.
Rename AddressBook.data.previous to AddressBook.data
Open Address Book. If you're lucky your addresses, as they were prior to your last edit, should be back.
- Wayne
PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Similar Messages

Why can't I edit or delete Address Book "On My Mac" or sync with iCloud?

Why can't I edit or delete Address Book cards on my Macs, now that I've migrated to iCloud? I can edit/delete if I go to iCloud, but the changes don't sync with my Macs. What's happening, and what's a solution? Just wait for Apple to fix a bug?

On your mac, if your look at the left panel of the Address Book, you'll find general categories of "iCloud" and possibly "On my mac" - if you have contacts in the latter, then they are only local to your mac, they are not shared with iCloud. If you don't have an "iCloud" category, then your mac(s) is not set up of iCloud. Go to system preferences and look in iCloud. Is the mac signed into iCloud, are contacts turned on for syncing?

Why isn't the Address Book on my mac syncing up with iCloud?

Since I've upgraded to iCloud, the Address Book on my mac isn't working right. There are some contacts on iCloud that are not showing up on my mac. Also, I can't get "add contact to address book" to work in Mail on my mac -- I'll select it, and it won't add the contact to Address Book. Funny enough, this function works fine when I'm on iCloud using the mail program within it on Safari. And these edited contacts show up fine on the iPhone and iPad, which are all on iCloud. Any advice? Thanks!

First, open Address Book on your Mac, then click Adress Book on the top bar, then click preferences. You will be taken to General, but click on Accounts. In the bottom left corner of the Preferences window, click +. Change the account type to iCloud, then enter your Apple ID/iCloud username and password, then press create, and again if it asks. Quit Address Book preferences and your iCloud contacts will appear on your Mac (If you have any already synced to iCloud).
Note: If you have some of the same contacts on your Mac as you on iCloud, you may be left with duplicates. To delete a contact, click on it to highlight it, then press function (fn) and backspace.
Hope this helps.

Accidentally deleted address book 'On My Mac'

I had brain **** yesterday and accidentally deleted the information for the address book account "On My Mac". I have scoured the web but cannot find a way to restore the account information.
The contact book is still working and I can create new entries for a Google address book that is still there. When I go to the Accounts and select 'On My Mac' it's empty. See below
Can anyone help to restore this default address book?
OS X 10.9.2
Macbook Pro Retina

The On My Mac Address Book does not sync to anything. You can move items from the On My Mac Address Book to one of the Address Books like Google, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL.
Let's say you have an Exchange, iCloud, Google and Yahoo account and select to sync their Address Book with Contacts.app. While you would be able to see each listed they are independent and do not sync to the other address books. You can move items from one to another but they only sync to their respective Address Books.
I see one of your Google accounts is inactive. Select that account and enter your password or two-step authentication code.
If there are no contacts in On My Mac it won't show up. Apple chooses not to show items if there is nothing in them. For example in Mail, if you have no Draft messages you won't see a drafts folder until you actually save a message. Once it's added it will stay there even if there are not messages. Same for Flags, VIP, Spam etc.
Does this help?

Deleted Address Book contents accidently. Now 'Previous Recipients' grayed

Hello all,
I accidentally deleted all of the contents of the Address Book with a misplaced Select All/Delete. It still works fine. It's just empty.
Now, from the Mail/Window/'Previous Recipients' window, each of the emails shows the little address book card on the far left side of the window (it think each email is in the address book). Thus, each email, when selected, grays out the 'Add to Address Book' button.
However, each brand new email that I send shows up in the 'Previous Recipients' list without the little card to the left of the name and it's 'Add to Address Book' button works fine.
How do I reset the entire list of the 'Previous Recipients' back to as if they were brand new so I can add them to the Address Book again.
Thanks
Message was edited by: steve061768
Message was edited by: steve061768

Hi Steve, and a warm welcome to the forums!
If I understand correctly...
In Mail>Window>Address Panel, Sect All, right click>Exort vCads, then in Address Book>File>Imort>vCards, select that file you just exported.

I have all of my contacts on my new iPhone, but none in my address book on my mac, and I can't get them to sync. Can someone help?

I had a bunch of junk entries in the address book on the mac, so I never synced the 2 when I had an iPhone 3GS. I got an iPhone 4 and even after deleting everything in the bunk address book, wasn't able to sync the iPhone 3GS's contacts (it had them all under a group for my my expired MobileMe account). So I got the iDrive Contacts app and back them up out there then ported them down to the new iPhone 4.
Confusing yet?
So now I have all of my contacts on the new phone (whew!) but I still can't get them into my address book on the mac. What in the world am I doing wrong?
Thanks for your help!!
Kim

Connect your iPhone 4 to your Mac. iTunes should open. Look on the left, you should see "Kim's iPhone" or something similar. Click on it. Then look at the top of the iTunes window, click on "Info". You can tick the box to sync your contacts from here. There are also options to sync with the cloud, with MobileMe, Google, Yahoo, etc, which allow automatic wireless syncing. Be careful here though, it's very easy to accidentally duplicate your contacts!

Sync address book between 2 macs?

How do you transfer all address book contents from MacBook Pro to an Air and thereafter sync them?
Same question ref calendar?

I was not suggesting to use your iPhone to sync the 2 computers.
What I was suggesting was that if you have an iPhone that you can sigh up for iCloud which will store your contacts and calendars and then sync them with all your Apple devices. You don't have to use it for anything else if you kdon't want to.
I personally use Google to sync my Android phone contacts and calendar with both my Mac Address book and iCal and my Windows PCs using Mozilla Thunderbird email program Address book and a Calendar add-on. I also use Thunderbird on the Mac and sync the contacts directly in TB with my Google account.
Other then doing something like that there is NO WAY.
Good Luck and Best Wishes.

How do I sync my address book in my Mac to iPhone instead of my old blackberry

I stopped using the Backup Assistant over a year ago because it wouldn't backup the email addresses onto my blackberry even though it showed in Backup Assistant.
Now I got a new iPhone 4S and I want to use my Address Book in my Mac to the iPhone. How do I sync it to my Address Book?
How does that differ in syncing with iTunes?
I already have iCloud.
Should I sync it to iCloud or my Mac Address Book (which really is already synced with iCloud, I think)?
I'm afraid to activate my iPhone until I have these questions answered.
Can someone help me?

I don't have a Mac but on my windows if I go into my phone info on iTunes when plugged in I go to contacts and there are choices to choose from like gmail and windows then sync. I assume when it's done on a max there is the same option on iTunes. If you go to iCloud.com and sign in you can check to see if your contacts are there. If you activate your phone it won't ruin what you have. It will ask you if you want to back up to what you have if there is anything. If you don't back up you can even if you say start fresh. I would go to an apple store if those things don't check out.

HT1351 My fifth generation nano will no longer sync my address book from my Mac. It gives me an error message that "You have no contacts" and asks me if I want to create some. My address book is full of contacts. Sync works for everything else.

My 5th generation nano will no longer Sync my address book from my Mac. It gives me a message that I have no "Contacts", and asks if I want to create some. My address book is full of contacts, but for some reason it thinks it is empty. All the other sync operations work fine including iCal. My Mac is running OS X 10.7.4.

It sounds like all of your contacts on your Mac running Lion are actually stored up in iCloud.
Several users running Mac OS X Lion and now ML (and iCloud) have no longer been able to "sync" contacts over to their older iPods models.
A work around is to export all of your contacts out of Address Book as vCards and them copy these vCards into your iPod's Contacts folder. You'll need to have the Enable Disk Use option ticked from under the iPod's Summary tab in order to browse out to the iPod's Contacts folder via the Finder.
Using your iPod as a storage drive
That's the only "solution" I have been able to use to get contacts to sync/appear on my 5G iPod Video.
B-rock

Sync Address Book across two Macs w/o .Mac

How do I sync two address books across two Macs without using .Mac?

Hi
There are several third-party solutions. When I was without .Mac I used Address-O-Sync. You can find others on versiontracker.
Matt

HT1296 I have the original iPhone and I can't sync the address book from my Mac to the iPhone. What should be the problem and can I sync?

I have the original iPhone and I can't sync the address book from my Mac to the iPhone. What should be the problem and can I sync?

Thanks a lot for the answer. I'm so upset, have no even one contact on my phone. I has to do with the moving to iCloud from MobileMe.
I did exactly what you wrote, and when trying to click the vcf file on the iPhone the screen freezing, and then after few long seconds it goes alon to home.
So I tried less contacts in a Vcard, and i'm dividing my address book, doing little by little and it work.
Thank you so much.
I still dont get why the sync with my computer address book is not working.
And why when I moved to icloud all the photos I had next to the contacts are disappered.
I had my iPad, which it still, I did not move from MobileMe to iCloud and all the photos are there!
Anything I can do to use the iCloud on the iPad as well and update the iCloud with the photos?

HT1267 I have been unable to sync my address book on my IPHONE, trying to sync the changes, I erased address book from my phone. I seem unable to re-establish the address book from my Mac on my phone! Please help!! thanks

I have been unable to sync my address book on my IPHONE, trying to sync the changes, I erased address book from my phone. I seem unable to re-establish the address book from my Mac on my phone! Please help!! thanks

Try the .Mac Sync forum - its probably more appropriate to your issue.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=957

How to sync Address Book with multiple macs

What are the methods for having 1 address book and having them synced over multiple macs.
I have:
- 1 iMac (24 inch)
- 1 Powerbook
- 1 iMac (dome)
- 1 iPhone
I'm using all of them (sounds weird, eh?) and I want to be able to have them synced automatically. One update on my iPhone reflects the other Address books.
Cheers!

Agreed, $99 a year seems like a bit much if that's all you want to do.
If you trust web-based free email services like Gmail, you can export your Address Book(s) and those on other platforms and manage it from there.
Downside is that there is apparently NOT an 'export' back at the present time if you decide to change.
So, for now I use MobileMe for the convenience, because $99 a year is easier than wading through three or four different programs and operating systems on multiple platforms.

Ipad 4 sync address book from mini mac snow lepoard. ?

1) I am unable to sync my address book from mini mac snow lepoard to my ipad 4.
2) How do i turn of the icloud......
3) How do I add more mailboxes to my email to file emails..???
All assistance geatly appreciated...ty

No you can sync them over a local network or USB cable, you just can't do so by iCloud.
The other option would be to sync your mobile devices with iCloud and use the contacts feature at iCloud.com rather than the Address Book when using the computer.

Syncing address book groups to .mac account

Can address groups be syncronized to my address book on my .mac account?

Hi Matt,
I'm trying to figure this out also. So far, I haven't been able to figure out how. All contacts are sync'd but not in groups. Hopefully, someone will have a suggestion.
Clint
17 G4 iMac 1ghz/1gb, blu2th keyboard, Airport Extreme Mac OS X (10.4.6) LaCie 160 gb

IChat deleted Address Book contents during .Mac sync?

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