Multiple address book contacts in System 10.9

Although this has been a problem resolved in the past, after installing Mavericks, my address book is generating multiple copies of each contact. I just went through the "Look for Duplicates" drill and subsequently merged a few thousand contacts. An hour later I see 6-to16 repeats for my contacts. Is this an unadvertised feature of 10.9?

Hi Eric Johnson15,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
If you've set iCloud to sync your contacts, this article may be useful:
Symptoms
After setting up iCloud Contacts, you may see an issue where individual Contacts appear to be duplicated. If you think you have this issue, visit iCloud Contacts at icloud.com/contacts to confirm if your contacts are duplicated.
If your contacts are not duplicated on the iCloud website (but are in Contacts, Address Book, Microsoft Outlook, or on your iOS device), continue following the rest of this article.
If your contacts are duplicated on iCloud.com, contact iCloud Support.
iCloud: Resolving duplicate Contacts after setting up iCloud Contacts
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4147
Best Regards,
Jeremy

Similar Messages

IMAC - lost view of Address book/Contacts and System Preferences

Need help. Contacts and System Preferences show they are open, but never show up on the screen

Resolved!

Why have my Address Book contacts disappeared after uploading to iCloud?

I am using my MacBook Pro w/OSX Lion.
After having many, many problems with contacts, calendars and bookmarks in MobileMe, migrating to iCloud, encountering a huge mess of duplicates and even completely missing contacts I decided to start over. So I disabled the iCloud account on all Macs and IOS devices. I then ensured all contacts, calendars and bookmarks were deleted from the MacBook Pro. I then used the Address Book export I'd made just prior to the migration from Mobile Me to iCloud and imported this onto my MacBook Pro. I've completely gone though the Address Book and removed or merged duplicates and cleaned up all contacts with detail. I backed up my Address Book again at this point. I then logged into iCloud.com using my original Apple User ID (NOT the MobileMe/me.com account which I'm going to vacate) and ensured that there were no contacts in the cloud and I deselected the default calendars here as well. My intention was/is to begin by starting small and deal only with the MacBook Pro Address Book and iCloud Contacts. So after I confirmed there is no data in the cloud I go into the MacBook Pro System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details ensuring I was signed out of the me.com user and entered my original Apple ID I've had since I started using iTunes many years back. I quit the browser and the Address Book and verified the non me.com user was saved under the System Preferences. I then selected Contacts under these iCloud System Preferences and I was asked If I wanted to merge my contacts with those in the cloud. Because there were no contacts in the cloud I selected yes. The spinning indicator indicated that the upload was occurring. Now, there are no contacts in the cloud and the Address Book contacts are missing. Thinking that my doing the Address Book backup may have removed all the data from the Address Book, I deselected Contacts in the iCloud System Preferences, reimported the backup into Address Book that I'd just done, confirmed the contacts I just imported appear in Address Book and I reselect Contacts in the iCloud System Preferences and again I get the spinning indicator. Again, there are no Contacts in the cloud and the contacts are missing from Address Book.
What the heck am I doing wrong? I've simplified my original attempt with iCloud by concentrating my efforts to just contacts AND I'm only using the MacBook and the iCloud cloud and I've still got problems. I thought this approach would narrow down where the issue lies and allow me to monitor the process more easily but I seem to be worse off than before I'd tried to resolve the initial migration problems because now I have no contacts.
I'm new to Macs so if you have a solution, please help and please give specifics because I'm still learning the structure and don't understand a lot of the acronyms and jargon.
Thanx

If you have a back up file, I'd try turning off iCloud contact syncing on all macs from system preferences > iCloud –
DONE
as well as any secondary accounts from system preferences > mail, contacts and calendars –
DONE (this was confusing but I figured out that you meant System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendars which is what you said in lowercase. For some reason without the capital letters I didn't clue in that Mail, Contacts and Calendars was an icon option under the System preferences and so I overlooked it multiple times. I see your use of "secondary account" which I note used also as a term in the User Tip link you referred me to view. Although, I still don't understand what this 'secondary' account is, I'm not interested in any secondary accounts because I've got my hands full with just iCloud for now. I did delete all accounts under the Mail, Contacts & Calendars).
If you have any iOS devices I'd do the same on those as well. –
DONE (not even introducing other Macs or IOS devices to the equation until I get the iCloud and MacBook syncing contacts correctly)
I'd log into iCloud.com and check my Address Book was empty and empty it if necessary –
DONE (it was empty already)
and then delete all contacts from every Address Book on every device
         DONE
Then I'd turn Address Book syncing back on –
DONE (This assuming that by ‘turn back on’ you mean System Preferences > iCloud and check marking the box next to Contacts)
and import my contacts from the backup file –
DONE (This assuming that by ‘import my contacts’ you mean importing the previously exported Address Book back up file back into the Address Book. I see contacts listed in the Address Book when I did this.)
No syncing seems to happen at this point?
you might also take a look at this User Tip, to ensure you understand the differences between the different accounts in Address Book before adding the contacts back.
         I did read this but understand is probably not an accurate term for my interpretation of what I read. I get that On My Mac will not sync with what is in the cloud and iCloud will sync with the cloud. In Address Book under the single head red ribbon I see neither account heading that is mentioned. I also was not asked at the time of import to select which ‘account’ I’d like the contacts setup under.
A) If there is no indication as to what Address Book account the contacts fall under, how does on find this out?
User Tips states
Your Address Book when synced with iCloud will have more than one account.
     My assumption is that I'm not synced with iCloud if I don't see either account option listed. I also would think that if I'm not synced and thus don't have more than one account then perhaps the All Contacts default to an On My Mac account but don't reflect an account heading of 'On My Mac’ as seen on the screen shot of the User Tips example.
Furthermore, User Tips also states
Default Account
Your 'default'account is set in address book preferences > general (the option is only displayed if you have more than one account).
         It would seem relevant to list which account your defaulted to even if you do not have more than one account because elsewise how are you supposed to know which account it is setup under?
B) How do you change which ‘account’ your contacts are setup under if they are under the wrong account?
         Assuming again that my contacts are ‘On My Mac’, then how do I move them to the ‘iCloud’ account of which is not listed?
C) Will any of this be affected by groups?
The five listings under All Contacts are groups that I set up as a sort of invitation list (so Christmas cards is one I’d probably setup this time of year). Although this question is secondary I would like to confirm that my interpretation of groups is accurate. I understand groups to be a sort of tagging of selected contacts from All Contacts but that the contacts in these groups are not duplicates to those in All Contacts. Is this correct? I ask because the User Tips states
To quickly duplicate a contact, drag it to your desktop, navigate to 'Groups', select the account you wish to duplicate to, double click the contact on your desktop.
            When reading this tip, I interpret that dragging and dropping contacts from All Contacts into a group would be similar to what is suggested in this tip which would indeed ‘duplicate’ the contact. I did drag and drop when I setup my groups so I’m concerned I duplicated the contacts in Address Book. I do not see two copies of the same contact under All Contacts though.
By the way, don't take it personally –
I don't, I have reading difficulties galore and am happy to accommodate if I can. I hope this is better. Helping you helps me if you're not struggling to read when thinking about the solution.
Thanx

Problems with outlook and address book contacts: my outlook contacts had around 3,000 entries. Outlook duplicated by itself and now outlook and address book have each over 340,000. What should I do?

Problems with outlook and address book contacts: my outlook contacts had around 3,000 entries. Outlook duplicated entries and have now 340,000. I reinstalled microsoft office and, thus, outlook, and reinstalled mac OS X system and applications. While I managed to delete outlook contacts so that I can re-sync with my blackberry, the contacts at Mac Address Book were not deleted and still have over 340,000 entries. I do not mind deleting all contacts since I have back up, but I have not been able to delete them. Also, when I go at Address Book and try to delete or merge duplicated entries, the system takes forever and never ends because of such large amount of entries. Worse, when I do so I run out of RAM memory.
My Macbook pro is just 2 months old.
What should I do? Is there a way to delete my Mac Address Book without having the problem above?
Many thanks
Regis

zlatan24 wrote:
For solving out troubles connected with corrupted or lost address book you may use address book recovery. It owns various features such as restoring wab files, it working under any Windows OS. The utility has modern and easy to use interface due to almost every experienced users.
If it is a windows problem it's not going to run on the OP's MacBook Pro

Multiple address books and/or Editing multiple address book entries

Two questions from a neophyte to Address Book:
1) Is there any way to make a "bulk change" to multiple entries in an address book (e.g. Add the text "Bob's friend" to the notes section of all the contacts in a selected group, or add the note "family" to a selected set of contacts?
Perhaps there is a way to use Automator for this? or AppleScript?
2) Is there a way to create multiple address books (short of creating multiple user accounts and logging in and out) to separate, for example business contacts from personal ones? Or perhaps is there a way to add a field to a template that allows one to categorize a contact as personal, business, school, retail, Sharon's friend, etc?
Please lend me your ideas!

Welcome to the discussions, Rangely.
1) Yes, certainly, Applescript is ideal for this. See below for a simple sample. You can see which features of AB are accessible by using Script Editor to open AB's dictionary.
2) Well, you could, but AB assumes its database is in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook, so you could have several parallel AB folders and swap them around as needed - but you can't do it from inside AB. It is much simpler to use the feature that suits the job - groups of contacts. As well as simplicity this has the advantage that details of someone who is business, school and Sharon's friend need only be stored once, as a contact can be in multiple groups.
AK
click here to open this script in your editor<pre style="font-family: 'Monaco', 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; overflow:auto; color: #222; background: #DDD; padding: 0.2em; font-size: 10px; width:400px">--Skeleton AB Script
--AK Mar 2007
tell application "Address Book"
repeat with Who in every person of group "Cousins"
if note of Who exists then
set note of Who to "Bob's Friend"
end if
end repeat
end tell</pre>

Mac OS 10.4 Address Book Contacts

Niether the Palm Data Transfer Agent nor the MissingSync program work under Mac OS 10.4, and I do not want to pay for 10.5 when 10.6 is coming out in September. Here is how I have found to copy all of my Address Book contacts to the Pre. It requires you to have a gmail account.
1) In Address Book, select all the contacts you want to export. You can select multiple contacts by shift-click or command-clicking. For example, to get all of your contacts click on the first one, then scroll to the last one and shift click on it. All of your contacts will be highlighted.
2) From the File menu, choose Export vCard..., enter of filename (or leave it as the devault "vCards"), note the directory where the vcards will be saved, and click the Save button.
3) Go to your gmail account using your favorite browser.
4) Click on the Contacts link (on the left side of the screen).
5) In the upper right hand corner of the contacts box, click on Import.
6) Browse to find the file of vCards you saved, and click on the import button.
At this point all of your contacts will be loaded into gmail. If you have already sync'ed your Pre with gmail, then your contacts should automatically update. Otherwise, follow the instructions for sync'ing with gmail.
While this procedure will copy all of your data over to the phone, it is not a real sync in that if you make changes either on the phone or in Address Book, you will have to manually push the changes over. I'll probably get MissingSync when I upgrade to a more recent version of OS X, but it would be nice if the Pre came with this functionality built-in...
Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

Does anyone have a solution for converting Palm Contacts? I'm happy to buy software to make this happen. I have 2500+ contacts and use many of the fields (and would like to keep them). I am on a mac and use a droid phone (Samsung Intercept). Sprint says that they can convert the contacts, but that they will then only be on my phone. I need to be able to update on my computer and have that sync with my phone.
thank you!

What is the best way to sync Address Book contacts?

Please help!
I run a small Mac network and I need to sync all (we have 8 Macs) the Mac's Address Book's with each other and also with 5 different iPhones. We have a Mac Server running Tiger and all the Macs are running Tiger. 4 of the Macs are Intel. The server is PowerPC.
At the moment I am just using 1 .Mac account to sync to them all, but this is causing many problems with duplications, errors and 'stress!'
The reason for the above setup is money. But, as the problems continue and the syncing become more important, money is now allowed to be spent.
My question really is, as the subject header says, 'What is the best way to sync Address Book contacts?' In the past I have tried XC Connect, and a few other apps, but with the introduction of the iPhones, the setup has become more complex.
If I were to buy all new Intel Macs and an Intel Mac Server all running Snow Leopard, would the 'Address Book Server' do the job? I have found very little information on the net and the information I did find was all negative.
Is there something Leopard can do that Tiger can't? Is Tiger nolonger a good enough system to try and run an Address Book network?
Does anybody else out there in the Mac world have a similar setup to mine, and if so, how do you have your setup.
Incidentally, ALL users, incuding iPhone users, need read & write access to the Address Book!!
Any solutions or suggestions would be most welcome.
Thanks in advance
col_t

Oh, I meant Leopard does do more than Tiger Server.
I don't know enough about Server, even less abut Syncing.
SL is to new, not enough time to iron out the kinks yet imho.
One day SL will be better than Leo, but...
I'd ask over in server...
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=96
Or perhaps Collaboration Services...
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1352
They may even have a different opinion on SL.

"Sync Address Book Contacts" option missing all groups

I had a problem with multiple copies of contacts on my iPhone so I deselected the "Sync Address Book Contacts" box in iTunes before synching. The popup said that all contacts would be removed from the iPhone, and I clicked to proceed. When the sync was complete, I verified that all contacts had been removed from my iPhone (they were).
Then I reselected the "Sync Address Book Contacts" but noticed that all 15 of the groups from my MacBook that normally appear in the box with the All Contacts/Selected Groups button were missing. I opened Address Book and they were all there.
I did a backup of Address Book and then deleted all of my contacts on my MacBook. I quit and restarted my MacBook and then imported my Address Book backup before connecting my iPhone and trying to sync the contacts again, but again, none of the groups appeared in the window and after proceeding with the sync anyway, not a single contact went to the iPhone. I've tried it by both selecting and deselecting the Contacts box under the "Replace information on this iPhone".
- I connected an iPod touch that didn't have any contact info to the MacBook and, as before, the groups from my address book did not show up and after synching, none of the contacts were installed on the iPod Touch, leaving me to believe that it is something iTunes related except that all of my calendars and music etc. sync without a problem.
- I've got the latest iTunes (10.1) and Snow Leopard s/w updates.
Any ideas?

Exported addresses from Address Book to desktop and then deleted all addresses from Address Book.
Deleted file AddressBook-v22.ab** from Library>Application Support>AddressBook.
Exited Address Book and iTunes, restarted Address Book and imported addresses from desktop.
Restarted iTunes and all of the groups were visible in the "Synch Address Book Contacts" window.

POP3 Mail & Address Book contacts have gone!

I recently did some housekeeping on my Mum's iBook G4 (OSX 10.4.10), part of which was purchasing and installing SpamSieve into Mail. This all went fine. Today she said all the mail in her POP3 inbox had gone, she couldn't send/receive and all her address book contacts had gone (Except hers and Apples).
I've got the iBook now and have noticed that her account type in Mail has somehow changed to a .Mac account (did I somehow do this, or did she???). This is obviously the root of the problem as the
email address now has '@mac.com' appended to the end and the incoming mail server is now 'mail.mac.com' and the outgoing is 'smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress' which is all wrong. I'm unable to change the account type back to POP or the incoming mail server from 'mail.mac.com' (it's greyed out) back to what it was.
I have now created a second account with the correct POP settings and have received in all unread email, but the read email messages have gone. I am unable to send as the new correct pop account is only offered the incorrect outgoing server ('smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress').
Having read several post on this forum, I feel the Mail/Address Book issues are connected and that maybe the application(s) database(s) have been corrupted. I've tried the Address Book remedy at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5248351&#5248351 but this does nothing. The 'user'>Library>Mail folder shows the two accounts as two separate folders. The recently recreated account folder has the new unread messages in the 'INBOX.mbox folder, but the older account folder (which now has 'MAC-' added to the front of its name) only has 'info.plist' in a 'INBOX.imapmbox' folder!
I don't believe any back-ups are available. Can anyone help me restore her old unread mail, and possibly her address book contacts?
I've also just noticed that SpamSieve does not launch as it should when I launch Mail, even though It was purchased and the scripts installed correctly.

Didn’t you make a backup prior to the housekeeping?
I don’t know why would Spotlight find contacts that are gone from Address Book (if that’s what you mean), but as far as Mail goes, under some circumstances (e.g. lack of available disk space, filesystem corruption, repeated crashes), Mail may discard the current ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist preferences file and create a new one. This file is where all the account settings are stored. As a result, all the non-.Mac account settings (but not the messages themselves) are lost. If you had a .Mac account, its settings would appear to have been preserved because Mail would set up that account automatically using the System Preferences > .Mac settings.
What’s the capacity and space available on the startup disk? Take a look at the comments about disk space in the following article, in case they apply to you:
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what’s it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, and ensuring that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), quit Mail if it’s running, and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, just in case something else goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. This is where all your mail is stored.
You have three options now:
(1) Restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist from a backup if you have one. Mail shouldn’t be running while you do this.
(2) Set up your mail accounts again (you may want to quit Mail and trash the new com.apple.mail.plist first to start over). If given the option to import existing mailboxes or something like that, don’t. Just enter the account information and Mail will automagically rediscover the data in ~/Library/Mail/ when done. You’ll also have to re-configure most of your settings in Mail > Preferences. For spam-related security reasons, the first thing you should do is go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it’s enabled.
(3) Mail may have renamed the old preferences file to com.apple.mail.plist.saved. If that’s the case, you may try trashing the new com.apple.mail.plist and renaming the old com.apple.mail.plist.saved back to com.apple.mail.plist. Again, be sure Mail isn’t running while doing this. Given the circumstances, there exists the possibility that com.apple.mail.plist.saved became corrupt, but that often is not the case and the settings can usually be restored by just renaming the file back to com.apple.mail.plist.
As a side effect of re-creating com.apple.mail.plist, Mail might rename Outbox (which is where messages waiting to be sent are stored) to Delivered. The name of that mailbox is actually a misnomer, as it would contain messages (if any) that couldn’t be delivered for some reason. You can delete that mailbox if you wish.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.

Multiple Address Books

Is there a way to have multiple address books?
I would like to have one for "work" but do not want to put over 2000 addresses to my private one (for having a work "group")

Michael Superczynski wrote:
A group for work contacts is a perfectly viable solution.
It might have been a viable solution if only the groups in Address Book were hierarchical, i.e if one could have e.g 50 groups in a Work "master" group, and 50 other groups in another Private "master" group, etcetera.
I currently find it difficult to deal with Address Book simply because I need and want to have many groups, many of them representing a list of people I have sent a group mail to, others representing other form of groups.

How to export address book contacts to numbers sheet

I am looking for a way to export my address book contacts from a specific group to a Numbers spreadsheet. Can someone help me with that? I would think it should be a simple task, but I can't seem to find any help for that kind of an operation.
Thanks in advance for any help.

select the contacts
copy,
switch to Numbers
paste
You should also make sure, in System Preferences, that Numbers is allowed to access Contact information in the "Security & Privacy" panel:

How to tell which address book contact belongs to?

Hello
I have multiple address books (gmail, Outlook, work, etc...).
As each address book has over 100+ entries, I look for contacts by searching (Simply starting typing their name!)
When viewing the contact, how can one tell which address book they belong to?
When I try editing, unable to edit which address book they belong to.
I'm sure I'm not the only one. Search here ... nothing yet ... at least I do not see it
Super thanks Blackberry lovers!
Anthony
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Open the contact in question. At the bottom click on Links. It will tell you the contacts list(s) it belongs to.
1. Please thank those who help you by clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of the post that helped you.
2. If your issue has been solved, please resolve it by marking the post "Solution?" which solved it for you!

My address book contacts in icloud

Hi All,
I cannot seem to sync my address book contacts in icloud. I have search for some info online which suggested that I go into my address book preferences and set it up to icloud but this option does not show in the preferences.
Any advice?
thanks.

You need Mac OS X 10.7.4 or later to use iCloud and have the iCloud system preferences pane.

G-mail doesn't accept my 5.1.10 version of Safari. Will a newer version allow me to transfer my address book contacts to g-mail?

I recently forwarded my e-mail from my local provider to g-mail. How do I transfer my address book contacts to g-mail contacts. Or how do I use MacMail with a g-mail account?

Add the Gmail account to Mail/Preferences/Accounts. Click the + sign at the bottom left and add it.
Try another browser as a test.
Firefox
If you want to upgrade the OS, the following applies.
Check that your computer is compatible with Mountain Lion/Mavericks/Yosemite.
To check the model number hold down the option/alt key, go to the Apple menu and select System Information.
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) model number 5,1 or higher
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) model number 3,1 or higher
Your Mac needs:
OS X v10.6.8 or OS X Lion already installed
2 GB or more of memory (More is better - 4 GB minimum seems to be the consensus)
8 GB or more of available space
Check to make sure your applications are compatible. PowerPC applications are no longer supported after 10.6.
Application Compatibility
Applications Compatibility (2)
Do a backup before installing.

Address Book contacts vanished - help!

I'm hyperventilating....my entire Address Book contact list has disappeared, four years' worth of critical info! I'm hoping someone can help me find/recover the data on my iMac.
Background: Last night, some of the apps on my iMac froze for an unknown reason. I was using Safari, left for a bit, came back and all of the Mac apps - Address Book, Mail, iCal, etc. had stopped responding. I Force Quit out of them, and rebooted my Mac. Mail and iCal were fine, all data still there.
Didn't use Address Book until just now - I opened it and it's empty - just the default 'new' data file that has my basic card and the Apple card. EEEKKK! I have years of irreplacable data in that missing file. What happened? I've never had such a problem in the 3 years I've had this Mac and system. Someone help ASAP, please! I have no addresses to send mail, no key business data or anything!
The Address Book app is still there, and the data folder has these files: ABPerson.skIndexInverted (292 kb, yesterday 9:51 pm), ABSubscribedPerson.skIndexInverted (8 kb), AddressBook.data (32 kb, today, 12:32 pm), AddressBook.data.previous (yesterday 9:53 pm), plus Images folder.
Thanks in advance if you can save my sanity and data.
Abby

Well, if it's not being found thwn it's likely some kind of Disk corruption, the files may or may not still exist, but if the OS or other APPs can't find them then it's very likly the space those files use has been freed for use in writing to the Disk, which OSX does far too often.
a virus or something?
Not likely a virus.
And, what am I supposed to do next if I do recover from another computer (all I have is a PC laptop...)?
Cannot be done from a PC, sorry.
Am I just looking to find the Address Book file?
Yes, mostly.
more panicked than before....
Very sorry to be the messenger here, but if that stuff is important to recover, I've given you my best advice... You need another Mac, or another HD to install to, boot from, try to recover to.
If I can or need to explain it better/clearer please let me know.

Multiple address book contacts in System 10.9

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