Restoring Address Book with Time Machine

I am trying to restore my Address Book contacts all but one of which vanished a couple days ago - but when I look at it in Time Machine it reads "last update 5/11/12" even as far back as Sep 2011. I've checked other files and TM has saved the correct older versions. Thoughts?

Boy, I really wish I could help, but I don't use , like, or trust TM.
Oh wait, maybe try the free demo of this...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/backintime.html
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/products/backintime_tm.html

Similar Messages

How to restore Address Book with Time Machine -

hello, I'm quite desperate beacuse the new version of iTunes has cancelled all my contacts and does no longer sync with Outllok for Mac.
On the Time Machine I see my old contacts in yesterdays' address book, but if I click on restore it just does not do it and returns to this messy verion of my address book. can anyone help me?
please

It looks to me like this other discussion from last year may offer you some useful suggestions:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17891606#17891606
Hope that helps.
Ivan

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.

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.

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.

HT201250 Can I just restore my address book with Time Machine...

or do I have to reload the entire back up? I recently wiped my drive and started from scratch and forgot to back up my address book in the process. I do not want to start over with the entire process if at all possible.

You can use only one drive at a time as a TM backup destination, though you can switch among as many drives as you like. They'll all back up the same set of files, unless you keep changing your exclusion list (which I wouldn't recommend.)

Restore Address book using Time Machine

Hello all.
While my Macbook Pro is being repaired, I would like to restore the Address Book from that laptop to my iMac. Can I do this? When I launch Time Machine on my iMac, and go to Address Book in the most recent backup, I cannot seem to click 'Restore'.
Thank you.

Your question has nothing to do with the AirPort Express (AX) nor with wireless networking. You probably should ask this question in the Time Machine discussion area.

Trying to restore Address Book from Time machine

I lost all but 32 0f my 1200 address book entries recently. I know not why. I tried to restore from my Time Machine back up in line with other posts I have found. The machine shows the 1200 entries as having been restored but as I watch they all disappear and go back to the orginal 32. I have tried a number of times and using differet back ups but the same thing happens. Any ideas would be gratefully received.
I sync my devices via iCloud. I have a G$, Mac Brook Pro, Mac Book Air, Ipad and iPhone 4.
Thanks in anticipation of your help.

Leicasnap wrote:
I sync my devices via iCloud.
That's the culprit.
iCloud, by definition, thinks it has the "master copy." So when you restore your 1200 entries, iCloud immediately overlays it with the contents of the cloud, which is, apparently, the 32.
See the 5th post here for a possible workaround: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3453735

Restore Address Book from Time machine backups

Hi,
I need to restore my Adress Book contacts from my Time machine external harddrive backup. I found to Library/Application Support/Adress Book thing, but has Library is hidden in my MacBook, it seems to be hidden in my backup harddrive. A simple ''option'' click doesnt seem to work. How can i make it visible on my external harddrive?!
Thanks!
(On that hardrive i went: ''backup folder''/users/''user''/. Then used ''Option'' to make is visible. But still hidden. If i go ''backup folder''/Library/Application Support, the AddressBook folder does not appear.)

Navigate with the Finder into the location where your lost data would be located. Click on the Time Machine icon in the Dock or open the Time Machine application in the Applications folder. Navigate back to just before you deleted your data. You should find the missing data, select it, click on the Restore button.

Restore Address Book via time machine failed (10.7.3)

Tried to restore my address book (10.7.3), but I terribly failed. What files do I actually have to restore? Tried the all the metafiles (library) and both com.apple.addressbook.plist, but no success. Any help welcome. Cheers, K.

Does it show with the default set to On my Mac? If it got "knocked out" by settng it to "iCloud", it would appear that you have a dataset On my Mac.
If you do find a dataset, it is as well to do a File>Export>iCal Archive to produce a .abbu file and keep it safe. This can be used to import during the procedure I described, to renew the iCloud data. But restoring the folder from TM should work, if you are signed out of iCloud.
If you have since done a TM backup, you may need to look further back for a valid dataset.
You could also try logging in to iCloud.com and see if, in fact, there is a dataset there already.

Restoring Address Book from Time Machine. "Error Message"

"Address Book can't be modified or deleted because it's required by Mac OS X.
I had HD wiped clean at Apple Store and just trying to restore from TM copy. Not trying to delete or modify. At least that I know of.
HELP.
Quilterlynn

"Address Book can't be modified or deleted because it's required by Mac OS X.
I had HD wiped clean at Apple Store and just trying to restore from TM copy. Not trying to delete or modify. At least that I know of.
HELP.
Quilterlynn

How to restore my address book from Time Machine?

First I know there are other threads with this (Properly) but non of them seemed to be specifically what i needed!
So by accident I deleted all my address contacts on my mac by accedeint. (I was trying to stop my Mac user account picture from changing all the time). I knew I had deleted them but didnt think anything of it. I came to text someone today and half my contacts have gone from my iPhone and my iPad . But i dont know how to get them back on to my address book via time machine.
I have tried the simple going back to where the last backup was and hiting restore, but nothing happens. I can i get them off iCloud if timemachine wont work? or have i truly lost them?

Open Address Book and then go to File > Import and select the most recent Address Book backup from your Time Machine Backup > Users > Your Name > Documents and import that should work.
Pete

Recover Address Book in Time Machine

I am using an iMac running Lion (not mountain Lion)
I accidentally deleted my address book which quickly synced to my iOS devices and iCloud so I have no contacts. This should not be a problem as I have been using Time Machine regularly and have been backing up using Time Machine to my Drobo FS. As luck would have it, when I open Address Book (with no contacts in it) and then click on Time Machine to get to my backups, Time Machine cannot find the backup drive.
If I go into Finder, I can 'see' the Drobo FS drive and even get to the partition that Time Machine is supposed to backup to. I can even 'mount' it so I can get to all the data that Time Machine is backing up.
I clicked on the 'Latest' folder and again, no go. Something is wrong. No worries, there are plenty of backdated folders and I can just get my Address Book data from that. I thought it would be as simple as finding the data in Finder and drag it over. When I click on one of those backdated folders, it works but I'm having trouble finding where the Address Book data is backed up.
I go to 'library/application data' and Address Book is not in there.
Does anyone know how I can restore the lost address book using Time Machine and Finder? Or is there another thing to try?

address book is integrated with Time machine so you can start Time machine when address book is active and restore the contacts you need one by one. alternatively, quit Address Book and restore the directory homedirectory/Library/Application Support/Address Book to a prior state (delete the current directory first). when you start address book it will be exactly as it was at the time of the backup you restored it from.

How do I restore adress book from time machine, How do I restore adress book from time machine

How do I restore address book from time machine

See the yellow box in #15 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

How to restore all system with Time Machine ?

How to restore all system from Time Machine ?
The backup disk for Time Machine is a Usb disk, and the Os is Mountain Lion 10.8.2.
Thanks in advance !

Restore the system with Time Machine and from the external backup Usb HD, by pressing CMD + R at the power on.
It worked without problem.
Thankyou once more !

Restoring Address Book with Time Machine

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