Recovering Lost Address Book

I've recently run into some trouble with syncing my address book with google contacts and ended up losing all my contacts. It sucked, but I kept my cool and eventually found that all my original contact information seems to be contained within the AddressBook-v22.abcddb within my /Users/bbarcelo/Library/Application Support/AddressBook directory. Needless to say I've got this file backup now and will be smarter about my address book in the future but my real question is this: My old (deleted) contact information appears to have been retained in the previously mentioned file but I can only view it using nano in the terminal. If I try to view it with an SQLite viewer I don't see the information contained in any specific table. Now, it's possible I could parse through this by hand but I was really hoping someone out there knew of a way I could extract everything to a readable format without all the jargon text and such...

sorry, i did misunderstand. then you do need to read that file. I don't know how to do that if Sqlite doesn't work. but for the future, as i said, this is the wrong file to save. it's rather hard to get info from.
the following trick worked for me. i suggest you try it. create a new user account and copy that file to the corresponding place in the home directory on that user account. then start address book on that account. it will read the database file (provided it's not corrupted) and recreate metadata from it. you can then export the contacts in one giant vcard as I suggested and then import that card into the address book on your main account.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Similar Messages

Once on iCloud how do you recover lost address book data?

After moving to iCloud my wife suddenely lost all her contact info earlier today. When opening Address Book on her iMac & iPad all contact info was gone. We signed on to iCloud.com and it was gone there too. For some reason it was still on her iPhone. I tried to force a merge from her phone by shutting off iCloud Contacts; selecting to keep data on the device; then turned it back on hoping to get the 'merge data' option. I didn't get that message and sure enough in a few seconds the address book on her phone went empty.
So, this raised the question about where do I recover the data from? I looked in finder on her iMac under user/Library/Addplication Support/Address Book - there were some files and directories there, but nothing that looked like it was loaded with contact info. I'm assumming once she moved to iCloud the detail is no longer stored locally in OS X?
I went into System Prefs and shut off iCloud Contacts on the iMac, opened Time Machine, went back a week ago (prior to iCloud) and found contact info in the user/Library/Addplication Support/Address Book directory and restored the entire directory. Opened Address Book and it was populated with data. turned on iCloud Contacts and selected the 'Merge' data option which then populated her other devices.
So, the question is - what if it had been longer than a week - where is this data (and probably calendar data too!) being backed up and where (and how) would you restore it from if it did suddenly turn up missing?

RickTexas wrote:
So this gets back to my original question... not sure if bgbrobru is running Time Machine backups, but even if he is, I don't think the Address Book data is recoverable (unless you go back to a pre-iCloud backup) because it is no longer stored locally.
If I understand correctly the only thing we can do going forward is to run a periodic 'manual' export of iCal and Address Book data to insure we have a backup? In the event I do something stupid and mistakingly delete something or - like what happened to my wife today - the entire address book (or calendar entries) just disapear, we are screwed? I guess this would also apply to email stored in folders on iCloud?
Seems there should be some way to capture the iCloud data in a Time Machine (or some other mechanism) backup?
Sorry Rick but that's incorrect,
Here's a shot of the folder it lives in and the path to it, Time Machine backs it up.

Need to recover lost address book info

I accidentally erased some of my cards in address book on my computer. They are on the .mac address book. How do I get the .mac address book to sync with my computer address fok and restore the lost material?

Could you kindly let me know how to do this in Advanced .Mac preference? I ahve the same issue, as I lost all my contacts in my address book in my mac, but I have them in the .mac
Thanks in advance

I have lost Address book app how do I recover it please. Thank you.

I have lost Address book app how do I recover it please. Thank you.

No kids or pets --- just me!I don't think there is too much mystery about the deletion of Address Book on my laptop. I was trying to get it up-to-date from my desktop computer and as that is Lion and the laptop is sitll Leopard (all these ***** cats!) I must have trashed the laptop Address Book, then tried to install the one from Lion but, of course it couldn't be installed - wrong system! By then I had lost Address Book!! Horrors! I then lifted it from my husband's computer (Panther or something!) et voila! But I had expected to have all HIS names and address in Address Book when I opened it but -- not so, his were not there and mine were! Don't ask!!
Thanks again and regards, Lecia

How to recover my address book if I didn't use the time machine?

Hello,
Can you tell me how to recover the address book from Mobile ME and Macbook? I didn't used the time machine and my contacts from Iphone are totally gone. Thanks

iPhone
MobileMe
Mail and Address book
Apple Support Snow Leopard
MacBook Pro
Depends a lot on when, what you have done since (and probably a good idea to not use the computer and devices). Might want to search for data recovery, Data Rescue 3 is handy with Mac and PC computers, not sure about the rest.

My computer crashed. HOw can I recover my address book, and emails?

My computer recently died. It was old and I plan to get a new one rather than repair the old one. Is there a way to recover my address book? Recovering old emails would be nice, but I'm really most concerned about all my addresses.

If the hard disk on the old computer still works, you could get someone to copy the profile from it to a CD. Then you could load that profile onto your new computer. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb to locate it.
If the hard disk is not usable, then without backups you don't have much left. :(

Lost address book contacts and restore?

Hi All,
I know it has been discussed a while ago, but I have lost all my contact details by overnight. Luckily I have .mac account (now mobileme) and all the address synched with my previous address book items is there. The question is how I can restore it from mobileme.
Thanks: Szimi

How could I recover address book's contact info
There are two possibilities. If you have a backup of your Address Book (AddressBook.abbu file), you can use the File > Revert to Address Book Backup menu option to restore your contacts. If you don't have a backup, you need to get in the habit of always making a backup when you make any change to your Address Book.
The second possibility is to enable the Debug menu in Address Book using this Terminal command (Address Book must not be running when you do this):
defaults write com.apple.AddressBook ABShowDebugMenu -bool True
then press Enter, then quit Terminal.
Start Address Book, go to the Debug menu and choose "Revert from MetaData" and wait to see what happens. With any luck, your contacts will be restored, after which you should make an immediate backup. If they are not restored, that means all the data was lost and you will need to restore from MobileMe, which is a question for their forums.
Mulder

Lost address book, found file named AddressBook.data.previous

My address book is gone. I found AddressBook.data.previous in Application Support under my account, but I can't open it and can't drag it to the Application. Any help? Is this my missing data?
Best to all.

With the Address Book application quit and using the Finder go to Home > Library > Application Support > AddressBook > AddressBook.data.previous.
If there is an Address Book.data file, move this to the Desktop. Change the name of AddressBook.data.previoius to AddressBook.data
Say a quick prayer of cross your fingers and launch Address Book.
If your contacts are not available, now is the time to start maintaining a backup or if you do, start including Address Book data with your backup which is quite easy.
As the menu bar, go to File and select Back Up Address Book. The default name for the backup file is Address Book - (and the date). A very easy process.
If you need to recover all contacts from this backup, at the menu bar go to File and select Revert to Address Book Backup selecting the backup file.
Before making a large number changes/edits, deletions or additions to existing data, update your backup file immediately beforehand.

Lost address book when installed Lion

I lost my content of address book after installing lion, address book now is empty, but I also have all the contacts in outlook. How can I copy/link/transfer to the address book from outlook?

I have actuallly managed to sort this problem.
First, in your main user directory unhide the Library (Go > Go to folder > Library).
You'll find equivalent folders in there to most of your old Library.
Go into Application Support > AddressBook and delete "AddressBook-v22.abcddb" (or move it somewhere safe).
Next open a second Finder window and locate all of your old address book cards. These should be in Library (the old one if you still have it) > Application Support > AddressBook > Metadata.
Drag all of the cards to the Metadata folder in your new Lion Library.
Start Address Book, and as if by long, drawn out, tedious, pointless and unnecessary magic, all your contacts should be there.
cheers
Murray (figuring something out before anyone else for the first time ever )

Restore lost Address Book contacts

I lost all Address Book Contacts the first time I tried to sync my iPad2 with my iMac. I have recent Time Machine backups, so I restored this file:
username/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.data
from a backup, making sure that Address Book was not running during the restore. I quit and restarted the iMac, but Address Book still shows 0 cards.
Any ideas on what I did wrong, or what I can do to get my contacts back?

urlgurl wrote:
username/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.data
Try username/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb

Does anyone know how to recover an address book

i was adding addresses to address book in the form of vcards in blocks of a 100 or so and i got the beach ball which never managed to recover itself, had to force shutdown and restart and the address book had gone, does anyone know where i can recover it from, cheers in advance for any help.

This sometimes helps:
Quit Address Book.
In folder ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook drag file AddressBook.data to the desktop. Rename AddressBook.data.previous to AddressBook.data and restart AB. If your contacts are not back quit AB again and repeat the drag/rename process, this time with AddressBook.data.beforesave.
If you get your contacts back, now is probably a good time to use the AB menu item File/Back up Address Book.
AK

Lost Address Book -- can I download from ipod?

I lost the entire contents of my Address Book, but have all the contacts on my ipod. Can I download the contacts from my ipod and import them back into my address book? One thing -- I currently have my computer set to automatically update my ipod, so I'm afraid as soon as I plug it in it will "update" my ipod with zero contacts. If I switch my ipod to disk use manually and then plug it in to my macbook, will that prevent this from happening? I checked the Library folder and there isn't even an Address Book folder in there at all. Help me!

I am not sure what you were doing when your AB data was lost. But you can check in Library/Application Support/AddressBook if there is a file called AddressBook.data.previous and if it is dated before you lost the data.
Then in the Address Book Application under the File menu there is a choice to Revert To Address Book Back Up. Might be worth a shot.
Good luck!

Lost Address Book, but now growing on its own

I recently lost my address book records overnight. I found my address book cleared of my own records, and filled with multiple entries of "Apple Computer Inc." Now, the address book is growing. Every few minutes another entry of "Apple Computer Inc." shows up in the address book. Has anyone else seen this? Any suggestions on fixing this?

You're not using Address Book correctly; you need to enter both a First and Last Name for each contact; not just a Last Name, or in All Caps. Mail and Address Book communicate, so when you receive an email from someone in Address Book, their name as they associated it with their email address when the account was setup is sent to Address Book and updated immediately.
That's why you will end up with double first names or last names, depending on what you entered. The solution is not to do that and use Address Book correctly.

Iphone sync and 300 lost address book contacts

Help. I'm sick about this. Everything has been going fine with my iphone until tonight. After I synced tonight, all 300 of my address book contacts disappeared on my phone AND on my computer. Even my backup hard drive doesn't show any contact information, only an address book icon which has no information when opened. Apple iphone tech support was unable to help me. Please I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight because of this. Can anyone out there help me get my contact information back?
Thank you.
Alden Burlington

Joel,
The Backup application they are referring to is the Backup application that comes with .Mac.
It does incremental backups. It doesn't replace the previous days backup. You can go to your backup location, and choose the day you want to restore from.
There is even a preconfigured plan for personal data and settings daily to iDisk that backs up iCal, Address Book, etc.
I would also recomend going into iSync's preferences and setting it to prompt you if more than 5% of your contacts or data will be changed. This is the default for iSync, but can be changed to not warn, or only warn when 25%, 50%, etc will be changed. If it is on the default you will get a message if information will be lost.
Also in some situations, reseting sync history before another sync, and then syncing again, may bring back some of the contacts.
Hope this helps,
Nathan C.

Lost address book settings and mail box whilst trying to copy inf

I have been trying to copy my old disc (onto an external hard drive) as i have a new machine and different disc.So i have been copying stuff from old disc to external but it has been interrupted a few times so had to go back and start process again.And because i had to do this I got rid of stuff on original hard disk , such as library , as i did not want it to copy this again.But in doing this I seem to have lost my mail box and emails and info which was in my address book such as email contacts.I have looked onto where copied library too but can not find the address book and mail stuff i need to bring back in order to get my old info back.I have tried importing from new copied library but am not sure where to go ? Does anyone know a way i can get old info back (mail and address book) (which i would then export in some way to get onto new disc ?).I have tried copying new library back onto/onto old disc but get message as it begins that something ? port something is in use so it can not be copied.Basically does any one know what i need to copy and paste back into/onto old disc (library ?) to get my old info back into mail and address book.I can not understand how else i could have lost it ? (apart from deleting
library ?).Any suggestions please.
thanks
rick

Hi Rick, there are actually 3 Library folders...
/System/Library/
/Library/
/Users/YourUserName/Library/
This last one is where your Mail & AB info would be.
On Mail...
First Quit Mail & Address Book.
Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail
Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail Downloads
(Could be a different folder here if you chose such in Mail Prefs)
Only the plist is separate.
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
For Address Book...
Files...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.abd.plist
Folders...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/

Recovering Lost Address Book

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