Restored Address Book information is replaced by iCloud

Long story short, another user messed up my address book contacts, and they synced with iCloud. Fortunately, I have an Address Book Archive that's current. So, I restored the Archive, which replaces everything in the Address Book. Then, it starts to sync immediately with iCloud, and the Address book is automatically reverted back to the previous "messed up" state. I've tried turning off iCloud Address Book syncing in System Preferences, but that doesn't seem to have any affect. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
J

Ok, figured this out. You need to use the Export vCard feature, NOT the Export Address Book Archive.
To rebuild the groups, I selected all contacts in each group, and exported them one group at a time.
When re-importing them, I recreated the group, imported the contacts from the vCard export from the group, then went to the Smart Group "Last Import", and dragged the contacts into the new group.
Thanks again for the tips!

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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!

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??

Restored address book from Time machine no images on contacts

hello all
had an issues with my address book
unfortunately i deleted my contacts from adress book fom my macbook and lost al my contacts even from iphone (so propably deleted the icloud contacts)
now thank god i found a way to restore them from Tiem Machine
everythin is good and have al contacts back
BUT
not contact images
is thetre any way to get them back?
thank you!

This worked for me:
From Time Machine, restore a good backup of the entire "/Users/james/Library/Application Support/Address Book" folder to a different location, like to a folder on your desktop.
(note: the Library folder typically won't show up in Finder. To make it visible, in Terminal, issue this command:
        defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
        then restart Finder: killall Finder )
Go offline. Do whatever you need to do to get completely disconnected from the internet (turn off Wireless, unplug the ethernet cable, etc.). Otherwise, iCloud will immediately overwrite your restore.
Delete the real folder: /Users/james/Library/Application Support/Address Book
Copy your restore (at the different location), to the real location ( /Users/james/Library/Application Support/Address Book )
Restart Contacts. Your restored data you want should be there. Before going online again, Export all these contacts (File - Export - etc...)
Go online again. iCloud will wipe out your Address Book with what's on iCloud. Re-import contacts as needed from your Export.

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.

Why is my address book not syncing with my icloud contacts

Why is my address book not syncing with my icloud contacts?
I have my desk top and I have an iphone. I seem to have 2 different contacts list, 1 from my mac and the other icloud. If i add adress on my iphone to contact it does not sync to "my mac"

thank you very much that worked.first i thought if i restored then I would lose everything but of course I could re-sync so everything good now!!

HT4436 Why don't all my contacts and calendar events on my iMac (version 10.7.4) stream onto iCloud? For instance, there are 470 entries in my address book but only 270 on iCloud. And not all my appointments in iCal are transferred.

Why don't all my contacts and calendar events on my iMac (version 10.7.4) stream onto iCloud? For instance, there are 470 entries in my address book but only 270 on iCloud. And not all my appointments in iCal are transferred either.
I have the same problem transfering Address book on iMac to contacts on iPhone (old version 3G - on iCloud). this is a hard wired connection

Might you have 200 entries in On My Mac groups and some of your appointments in On My Mac calendars?

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.

My address book will not synch with iCloud or iPhone 4

Since upgrading to lion, my address book will not synch with icloud or my iphone 4. Any idea what I should do?

I can't figure out what's going on. Been working on this all day. Yes, all the preferences are checked off and I've triple checked everything. The truth is, after many experiments, I think the problem has to do with how address book is communicating with my contact list. I use quickbooks 2012 for mac. It has all of my customers and vendors synched with my address book on my mac. If I add a customer in quickbooks it shows up in address book on my mac. But it doesn't show up in Icloud or on my Iphone. If I manually add a customer to my Iphone it synchs fine with Icloud and my address book. It seems that the only time devices can't communicate is when I add a contact in quickbooks. No matter what I do, I can't get the new contact from quickbooks to icloud or my iphone. It looks like those programs/devices completely ignore the new contact in address book that was created in quickbooks. I realize you probably can't help me here but if you have any ideas let me know.

What file contains my Address Books information?

I would like to reformat my disk, but I want to save the file that contains my Address Books information. Can someone tell me what the name of this files is and where it resides? Thanks!

Each contact has a file on its own.
They reside in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata/
You can (somewhat) view their content with TextEdit
You want to backup the full "AddressBook" folder. Not just the individual files found in Metadada
Have a nice day.

Address book fix or replacement?

In Lion Address Book, is there any way to see your groups, contacts and lists in one screen as you could in the Snow Leopard and previous versions? You have to keep flipping back and forth, and it is SO inconvenient and kludgy. What on earth was Apple thinking when they approved this atrocity? In all honestly, I absolutely DESPISE this. It is so much less useful and less user-friendly than that of the one in Snow Leopard and previous versions.
If you can't change it, is there a good replacement for AB? One that will restore the convenience of previous versions?

When you sign into iCloud, all data should merge. Make a backup of your contacts before trying if you don't have a backup already.
Once done, you can deselect Conatacts from iCloud preferences and choose delete from the Mac. Once done, reselect Contacs and your address book should only have iCloud contacts listed and no local.

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.

How do I share address book and calendars with other iCloud users?

I guess the title of the discussion question says it all.
My wife, and other family members want to SHARE Contacts, Calendars etc... with other iCloud users.
Simple task... most people would want to do it...
But... I can't find an easy answer... how do I do it?

Roger, thanks... I had continued my search and found this information on the discussion.
Now, my biggest concern is the ADDRESS BOOK... I'd like to publish, specific GROUPS within my master Address Book to other iCloud users... with either Read Only, or Read Write permisions.
Do you have any knowledge or suggestion on how that can be accomplished in iCloud?
It seems as though this would be FOUNDATIONAL in iCloud if APPLE expects it to be a USABLE SERVICE.
Thanks for your help...

Contacts in address book do not show in iCloud

I have set up the iCloud and got Calendar working fine. Contacts don't. When I merge contacts from iCloud they don't upload and disappear from my Address Book in my iMac ( I have a back up so I ca restore them....). I tried several times but no result. They are fine in my iPhone, though.
Anybody can help?
Thanks!
Claudio

I ask this because I presume that my Macbook Address book is the master of all, and if I add a contact in here for example, it would be pushed to iCloud and then to my iPhone? But when I add contacts or make changes in my Address book on Macbook Pro, these are not appearing in iCloud
I think you misunderstand the way it works. First, there are two places on your computer to see the data.
1. "On my Mac" that is not synced to iCloud.
2. "iCloud" that is a slave to the Master iCloud dataset. It is somewhat similar to IMAP email.
When importing data, you can choose which place it goes to. The option is a bit obscure, you need to point to the icon to produce the alternative location ("On my Mac" or "iCloud").
Don't close iCloud in System Preferences (the term "logout" is confusing, It's actually like deleting an email accout). If you want to "logout" say, on a shared computer, do it in Safari as a session logout.
What your iPhone or iCloud on your computer is seeing, is the iCloud dataset. With the proviso that it sometimes takes a while for the server to reflect the changes. You also see the "On my Mac" dataset, which may look like duplicate data, if it is the same.
If your changes to the address book on your computer are not being changed in iCloud, it is either a server problem, or more likely, that you are working in the "On my Mac" dataset, which is not synced to iCloud.
If you want to have a simple iCloud only system, I suggest you:
A. make archive copies of the Address Book by File>Export>Archive
(and each Calendar in iCal as .ics files by File>Export>Export)
B. Delete the "On my Mac" Datasets.
You are less likely to see duplicate data showing, unless it all got horribly merged in iCloud, and duplicated up there already.
(Beware the "merge" option when creating an iCloud account, if there is already data in it)

Restoring address book after hard drive failure

my hard drive has just died on me and been replaced. I now want to sync and restore my address book from .Mac onto my address book on hard drive - but am scared am going to wipe it out on .Mac instead.
Is it as simple as syncing? I just want to check it won't wipe out my .mac address book.
thanks

my hard drive has just died on me and been replaced. I now want to sync and restore my address book from .Mac onto my address book on hard drive - but am scared am going to wipe it out on .Mac instead.
Is it as simple as syncing? I just want to check it won't wipe out my .mac address book.
thanks

Restored Address Book information is replaced by iCloud

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