Sync Address Book between users

I just set up Snow Leopard server and I am looking for a way to synchronize and address book between multiple users. I do not want to use LDAP for this. I am looking for a server side to keep two or more users address book contacts synchronized automatically.

One way you could do this, and it's a complicated way, is scripting. As the actual address book entries are just flat file vcards you could synchronize two or more directories using rsync. The complication arises with finding the path for each user you want to sync. It's under /Library/AddressBookServer/Documents/addressbooks/_uids_/...
It gets fairly convoluted after the uids part. It breaks it down based on the GUID of each user so you would have to look up the GUID in Workgroup Manager for the users you want to sync. Get the paths to their particular folders, then add them to an rsync script.
If anyone knows of an easier way, please do share.
Actually the more I think on this the less I think it's doable, as there may be information in the vcard that is specific to the user that created it, like a UID or GUID. Not sure though.
Matthew

Similar Messages

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 to sync Notes, iCal & Address Book between iPod & Mac?

Hi, there:
Could someone please be so kind to teach me how to sync Notes, iCal & Address Book between my iPod Touch (with iOS6) & Mac (with OS X10.6.8)?
What file format would it be in when Notes is synced from my iPod Touch into Mac, if possible?
How may I drag photos in my regular photos files (not using iPhoto) from my Mac into iPod Touch?
And........HAPPY NEW YEAR of 2014 to Everyone!!!!!!!!
Message was edited by: applerock9999

Thanks so much for your detailed reply. Much appreciated!
Just to confirm my understanding that 100% clear on the solution, if my wife gets her own iCloud account, on her phone she'll receive her own emails & iMessages (makes sense) but not contacts. Calendars though we could share.
Without two separate iCloud accts though -- iCloud on my phone, and her email through Gmail on her phone -- we could share all the common iCloud data (contacts, calendar, notes, reminders, etc.) by enabling the appropriate settings on her phone.
Am I correct to conclude then that the sole benefit of her adding own iCloud acct is email through iCloud (and I guess the free 5GB)? It would not be possible to simply and easily have one common 'family' address book (i.e. since while Calendars are share-able, contact libraries are not)?

Syncing address book contacts list to family using iCloud

As former mobileme family pack users, we could share all contacts stored on our Mac's address book between all 4 of our iOS devices in the family.
Since upgrading to iCloud we are only getting contacts from our individual accounts, is there a way to share them like mobileme could?

I read that there is a way to share an address book on multiple iOS devices, even if each person with thier iOS device has thier own iCloud account. It turns out it is possible to add another, ie. more than one, iCloud account to an iOS device. I think then that one iCloud account would have the master Address book.
I haven't tried it yet. It looks like you can do that through <settings><Mail,Contacts,Calendars><add account> and select an iCloud account. Then you can go into <settings><iCloud> and manage which items from that iCloud account sync. The only thing I haven't figured out is if you can do it on multiple Macs as well - my wife and I each have our own MacBook Pros.
The article was @ ZDNET
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/mobileme-to-icloud-migration-and-calendar-sharin g/11436
Message was edited by: Niko03
I just looked in Address book preferences on my mac and it looks like you could add another iCloud account there as well. Tomorrow I'm picking up an iPhone 4s for my wife and will set up an iCloud account for her and do some playing around to see what works.

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.

MacBook Pro 17" iTunes can't sync address book with iPad Air

Can't sync between MacBook Pro 10.6 OS ver and new iPad Air (bought 2 days ago) cell 32gig. Have been to Apple shop at Garden City WA, helpful but seems very little knowledge of 10.6 OS. Have attempted upgrade on MacBook to Lion OS, persevered and seemed to work. Except now the MacBook won't boot, even choosing drive unit, just spins the icon. Even left it for a few hours just in case it needed time to sort itself out.
Back to Apple shop first thing in the morning, getting MacBook up and running is first priority followed by syncing address book with iPad. If can't sync guess I'll have to return it as having them communicate is why I brought the iPad, something lighter in my brief case instead of carrying the MacBook around.
It became tiring being told the MacBook was old technology, having spent money with Apple upgrading the MacBook drive & memory to cope with Final Cut and Creative suite.
Any advice most welcome!

Figured it out and it wasn't fun. I watched the console messages as I deleted groups and tried to sync with Mobile Me until no error msg was displayed. Then I restored AB from a back up and proceeded to delete contacts one at a time and check for errors until none were displayed. After deleting about half my contacts under the one group I finally found the one contact. I then did another AB restore, deleted the troubled contact, sync'd fine, then did another backup. I have no idea why that one contact was the problem as everything looked fine. Console msgs only showed a silly number as the contact, not the name, which is why I had to go through all this. But...it's fixed.

Sync address book without icloud

This has been asked before I'm sure, but I couldn't find it. Mobileme so far, no icloud for me (for political/religous reasons). Would like to sync my Address book between two computers. I heard it's possible with google, but doesn't work properly, and possible with yahoo. Any link would help!

You don't go into detail of the configerations of the two computers. What OS you are using on each; are they both Macs, etc.
If it's two Macs, maybe this link will help you:
http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=4085

Unble to sync. address book GAL

Dear all, i have oracle outlook connector installed at my company some user have outlook 2000 and some of them 2002. i am not able in both outlook to sync. address book the synchronization button is disabled (grayed). i tried to set it from the oracle connector tab in the outlook options but can't find this tab.
i tried to follow the following note wiht no luck
"7. How often is the GAL refreshed? How do you control the refresh from an OCFO Perspective? Answer ------ The GAL can be refreshed in two different ways: automatically and/or manually. (a) Automatic Refresh: -Select the Tools Menu -Choose Options -Select the "Oracle Connector" tab -Press the "Calendar Options..." button -In the Address Book section, make sure that the following box is checked: "Automatically refresh the Global Address List when working online" By default, the GAL is assumed to be valid for 7 days. (b) No Automatic Refresh: -Select the Tools Menu -Choose Options -Select the "Oracle Connector" tab -Press the "Calendar Options..." button -In the Address Book section, make sure that the following box is not checked: "Automatically refresh the Global Address List when working online" (c) Manually: Regarless of whether or not you are automatically refreshing the GAL, you can decide to update the GAL manually. To do so: Outlook 2000: -Select the Tools menu -Choose Synchronize -Then select "Download Address Book..." Outlook 2002/2003 -Select the Tools menu -Choose Send/Receive -Then select "Download Address Book..." You will then see a progress bar and a completely new version of the GAL will downloaded -- this may take a few minutes. "

Add this line to your calendar server's unison.ini file, this will make the GAL update automatically. You can also manually update by going to the Tools menu, select Send/Receive and click "Download Global Address List"
[OUTLOOK_CONNECTOR]
gal-minimal-lifetime-days = 1

How to sync Address Book, iCal, Bookmarks

How to sync Address Book, iCal, Bookmarks between my iMac and Macbook?

{quote:title=Julian Wright wrote:}Do you expect everything to be free?{quote}
Geez, ya big meanie, give the guy a break. Not everyone wants to spend $50 on a syncing solution! He just asked a question, and you heap attitude on him about his finances. Not your business!
5480, syncing that information between two Macs is both easy and tricky at the same time. It’s easy because you really can just copy the files back and forth. But it can get tricky if, for instance, you were to change information on both sides. Then you’ve got two different versions! The general solution to this is to be pretty careful about only changing data on one side at a time. If you add some contacts on one side, don’t go working in Address Book on the other side until you’ve copied the new info over.
“Exporting” the data, burning to CD, and then importing it on the other Mac would be a total pain in the ***, though. Much too time consuming. What you need to do, if you don’t want to pay for a solution (I didn’t for ages), is just learn to hook your computers together on a network, and copy over the relevant files directly (no exporting, no CD burning). Address Book, iCal and bookmarks data is all stored in folders in your Library folder. You just copy it over! Be sure to quit the applications before moving the data.
Where exactly are these files, you say? How do you network? Figuring out the details is your homework assignment, but the method works. Good luck!

Syncing Address Book contacts with iPod

I know some people will think this post should be in the iPod forum but I have realised that it is not my iPod beccasue I tried using a different iPod and the same problem happened. Anyway...the problem is that when I choose to sync Address Book contacts with iPod it comes up with this message:
No contacts available
Contact syncinig cannot be enabled because there are no contacts available. Do you want to open Address Book and create contacts now?
And gives me the options: Cancel and Open Address Book
I have tried deleting several different preferences for iTunes, Address Book and iSync (just incase).
I don't know what else to do, I know I can manually add my contacts by exporting them all as a vCard but it would be so much easier if iTunes could do it. Please help if you know anything!
iMac G5 (iSight) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.9GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB RAM, 17" Widescreen
iMac G5 (iSight) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.9GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB RAM, 17" Widescreen

I've got Calenders syncing again, not sure how I did it. I deleted the one of the folders in /Users/Alex/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/clientdata/
I found that in each folder there is a clientname.txt file with the name of what data is in the folder e.g. iCal, Safari, Keychain, Mail.
I deleted the iCal one and iTunes seems to be syncing it now. So I looked for a folder with Address Book in the clientname.txt file but there wasn't one. I am wondering whether that's the reason!

Maverick won't permit syncing Address Book or Calendar by USB to iPhone or iPad and permits only syncing by iCloud, which I don't want to use. Any ideas on how to sync without using iCloud?

Maverick won't permit syncing Address Book or Calendar by USB cable from my MacBook Air to my iPhone and iPad and permits syncing only by iCloud. Mountain Lion permitted this via the Info tab on iTunes. I don't want to use iCloud. Any ideas with Maverick on how to sync Address Book and Calendar from computer to iPhone and iPad without using iCloud?

ymcneil - thanks for the work around. But isn't it amazing Apple forces us to do this to maintain our privacy.
I live in Australia where there are good privacy laws protecting citizens. I do not want to be forced to use iCloud when the data sits in the USA with weaker privacy laws and also able to be seen by the US Government under the Patriot Act. Further I suspect Apple will interrogate my contacts and calendar for commercial purposes and I do not want that either.
I chose to synch my calendar and contacts with my iphone and ipad. I have relied for years on carrying around my phone with my diary on it. I can no longer do that.
Whoever made this decision at Apple has to be someone who knows little about the world. I can actually see EU regulators getting very annoyed by this.
I too woud like the itunes mac to iphone/ipad local backup given back.
In the meantime - thanks for the work around

How can I sync address book to iPhone 3?

How can I sync address book from mac book pro to iPhone 3?

Have you tried this article: iOS: Syncing with iTunes - Support - Apple
Go to the Info Tab in iTunes

Syncing Address Book to IPod Classic

Problem: Syncing Address Book to my iPod Classic 80 (using iMac, bought new Dec. 2007)
I have tried again and again to sync my Address Book to the iPod; with always the same weird results.
1. When I sync my iPod to the Address Book, only seven contacts of 166 appear on the iPod - THIS is the problem.
2. On the iTunes Contacts page I have checked; ‘Sync Address Book’ and ‘All Contacts’.
3. During syncing the window states that it is syncing contacts.
4. In the list of ‘Selected Groups’ (I always have ‘All Contacts’ checked) groups appear that I have deleted in Address Book.
5. I used Bento in the past, and didn’t like it; I have moved Bento from the application folder to the Trash. Could Bento be interfering somehow?
6. On Preferences I have tried vCard 3.1 and 2.0, neither worked - 3.1 is currently selected.
7. In Address Book, I did an archive backup. And then restored with the archive, no difference, with the sync. The restore worked fine in Address Book.
8. As a test, in Address Book I deleted one of the seven contacts, that do appear on the iPod (see 1. above); then synced; it still appears on my iPod - the contact that won’t die.
9. Syncing of Calendars works fine.
10. I have tried resetting the iPod. Still no difference after syncing, still only seven contacts appear, including the deleted one.
11. Where is the data for the Address Book stored on the computer? If I deleted all the data files in Address Book, would that help? Would the files rebuild themselves with the restore archive?
12. The iPod software is up to date.
13. Resetting the iPod did not change anything.
14. I did the sync manually - syncing only Contacts, still only seven contacts.
What can I do? Any ideas would be appreciated. Using the iPod for contacts would very useful - I really do not want to buy another device or a cell phone (PDA) that also stores addresses.
Thanks, Diane

OK - Now we have some progress. I did as suggested and 'Reset Sync History', The seven contacts on the iPod are gone! However, it still is not syncing up my contacts. I reset the iPod, tried manually, restarted the computer, etc. - it didn't help. Thank you for the suggestion.
Thank You, Diane

Sync Address Books w/o iphone

Is it possible to sync address books on two computers (same OSX) without a .mac account nor an iphone? I also tried working through google. And although I have the sync with google option in pref of address book, when I click on it nothing happens after I log into my google account. Does it also need .mac?

You don't need a MobileMe account for this.
I'm running Snow Leopard on my Mac and via Address Book preferences there is an option to sync contacts with a Google account, and/or with a Yahoo account.

"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.

Sync Address Book between users

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