Thousands of duplicate contacts in Address Book

I am running Thunderbird 24.4.0 on Windows 7. I have had the Google contacts Add On installed and activated for a while with no issues, but in the past month+ all of a sudden I am finding thousands (like 12,000) duplicates are certain contacts. It is usually a new to my system email address, and in at least two of the cases is a contact I already have in the system. And it's random - not EVERY new email address does this.
I have searched and searched and found others with the issue, but no real solution or explanation of where the problem might be coming from. Google contacts? Thunderbird? The add-on?
Anyone have any ideas? I know how to delete the multiples and use the merge function on Google -- but the problem is how to prevent it from happening! Not only is it annoying to have 15,000 of the same contact, but it causes terrible, terrible slowness in the auto-entering of addresses when I am writing an email, since the system has to search through so many contacts. Incredibly annoying.
Thanks in advance for the help!

I have that add-on installed and have none of your issues. What Thunderbird version?

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DUPLICATE CONTACTS IN ADDRESS BOOK ON iPHONE

I have duplicate contacts for every name in my address book on my iPhone. This morning, I opened my address book in my AppleBook and erased all duplicates. I synced my iPhone again, and still have duplicate addresses. Can anyone explain the problem and help me resolve it? Thanks

This means you've also selected to sync contacts direct with the Address Book on your Mac via the iTunes sync preferences, which duplicates the contacts on your iPhone.
To remove the duplicates on your iPhone, deselect sync Contacts under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes followed by selecting Apply.
On your iPhone go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Select your MobileMe account.
Turn Contacts off for over the air syncing. This will erase all contacts downloaded from your MobileMe online address book with a warning message provided indicating this will occur. This will not erase contacts synced direct with the Address Book on your Mac via the iTunes sync process.
Select OK and wait a minute or two for the online contacts to be deleted from your iPhone.
Follow this by turning Contacts back on for over the air syncing. This will provide a merge prompt, which you want to select. This will eliminate the duplicates.

Sync between MacBookPro and iPhone 3G does not sync properly. Calendars duplicate events but worse is that only contacts from Address book from letter T onwards sync. Any contacts on iPhone which are not on Mac are lost during sync.

Sync between MacBookPro and iPhone 3G does not sync properly. Calendars duplicate events but worse is that only contacts from Address book from letter T onwards sync. Any contacts on iPhone which are not on Mac are lost during sync.
Solutions?

No, I never really found an easy solution. I believe it is an issue with some corruption in the iTunes database on the specific device. In my case, both my iPad and iPhone now show duplicate stream songs if viewed through iTunes on my Mac, but they show different songs. A couple years ago I had a similar issue on my iPhone, and Apple support suggested I back up the phone, completely reset it, and then restore it from the backup. It did work, so I imagine it would probably work for my current issues with the iPhone and iPad. But resetting and restoring an iPad or iPhone always makes me a little nervous that something will get lost. When I did reset/restore the iPhone, I do have to say, the restore process was 100% perfect and I did not lose any data at all even though Apple support said I might. If you try to go that route, I would suggest backing the device up both to a computer through iTunes, and to the iCloud so that you have a double backup.
None of this really resolves the issue with how the iTunes databases are becoming corrupted on the apple devices though, so it is very likely to happen again until they fix it. I have been unable to determine if there were any specific actions or conditions which caused the corruption to happen in the first place.
Might be worth another call to Apple support, or dropping in the local Apple store if you have one near by.

I am trying to create a group in the address book. When I drag over the contacts from the contact list they duplicate in the address book. I am using "Lion"

When I try to create a group from the address book, when I drag over the names from the contact list, the names duplicate in the address book.

Hi cavu10horses,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. This article has instructions for changing a contact's photo using a photo from iPhoto's Faces feature:
Contacts: Add or change contact pictures
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11580
Select a contact or your own card, and then double-click the picture well.
Select a picture:
Drag an image to the picture well.
Click Camera to take a picture.
If you have pictures in iPhoto, click the Faces button to use a face from iPhoto.
If the contact is linked (it’s in multiple accounts, but displayed only once in Contacts) and has multiple account pictures, click Linked.
Click Edit to edit the picture.
To zoom in and out of the picture, drag the slider. Drag the picture to change which part of it is visible.
To rotate the picture, hold down the Option key while you click and drag the picture.
To apply special effects, click the Effects Gallery button and choose an effect.
Click Done.
Cheers,
- Ari

Problems syncing from contacts to address book

I have an iMac which now runs OSX 10.6.8 and an iPhone 3GS that runs the latest iOS 5.
Long story short, I downgraded from OSX Lion back to OSX 10.6.8 a few months ago. Got quite a few problems doing so... ended up creating a brand new user and transferring music, videos and photos manually. Then, the iOS 5 got out and I upgraded my phone right away. I couldn't figure out icloud at first but understood yesterday that it works only with Lion. I thought I'd keep it on my phone if I ever want to install Lion again.
I also realised that I never transfered back in my iMac all my iCal events and Contacts.
So yesterday, I tryied to sync my Contacts, iCal and Notes from my iPhone to my iMac. In the iTune info tab, under each section, there was a message mentioning that since I use iCloud, I don't need to sync my info through iTune and doing so would possibly create duplicates. I try to sync them anyway since I only had to in Address Book. I got the message to merge or replace. I selected merge (yes I had at least one contact in Address Book). Nothing happened... iCal didn't merge anything and neither Address Book. I tried to create new events in my phone and iMac and these were syncing but not the original ones. Also added a contact in Address Book and it got sync with my phone. I didn't try creating one on the phone to sync it through but assumed that it was working.
After going through a few discussion threads, I decided to delete the iCloud account on my phone since I didn't need it and try re-syncing. The iCloud message in the iTune's info tab was gone so I thought everything would be good and I could select merge my contact again without any problem. I was wrong... I lost all my contacts... I freeeeeeeeaked out !! Thank God I didn't unplug the phone and restored it right away to get everything back.
I tried it again this afternoon but only tried to sync iCal. I didn't get to choose between merge and replace and the same thing happened again... lost everything... iCal but also Contacts which I find strange because I didn't check the Contact option in iTune.... I got everything restored back even thought it's always scary to try things like this.... So for now on, I don't delete my iCloud info on my Phone and do not sync any other info. I'm actually scared to plug it in and always double check that my contacts are all there before unplugging.
So here I am... don't really know what to do... I read stuff about removing apple.isync files or something... or other options but they never quite answer my problem...
There is still the option to type all my contacts back in Address Book.. I don't have that many... but it's a pain...
Sorry about the long message here
Thanks for your help and for your time.
Ben

Clearly iSync has got confused about what new data it needs to pull from the phone. Usually resetting the sync history solves this, but as it hasn't for you... try this:
I would suggest sending all the contacts from the phone to the Mac manually via Bluetooth: *Contacts > Options > More > Advanced > Send all Contacts > Via Bluetooth* (or similar, depending on the exact phone model)
This will send vCard(s) which can be imported into the Mac Address Book simply by double-clicking the file that arrives on your Mac.
Merge or remove any duplicates as they are imported. You can also use the *Card > Look for Duplicates* command in Address Book.
Once all your Contacts are exactly as you want them in Address Book do a full backup of them:
*File > Export > Address Book archive...*
Finally, load iSync, click your phones icon and choose *Reset Device...* from the Devices menu.
This will force iSync to remove all the existing contacts from the phone and completely replace them with all the new nicely sorted out ones from the Mac Address Book.
From this point on, iSync should keep track of what needs updating on each subsequent sync.

How can I delete all my contacts in Address Book?

I had syncing issues between my Entourage 2008 contacts, my Address Book contacts, and the PowerMac for Blackberry application. As a reference, I have around 5,000 contacts. I have solved the issue, but there is some collateral damage: read on.
Address Book duplicated my contacts two or three times, and it also created around 60,000 empty contacts. I have been able to clean the Entourage contacts, which only suffered from duplication but not from new empty entries.
I tried to delete the Address Book duplicate and empty entries. The easy way out, I thought, was to Select All and delete. It does not work. Given I have ended with around 80,000 contacts, after I Select All, and try to delete, the program hangs, and I have to Force Quit the Address Book application.
I tried to locate the Address Book file where contacts are stored, but I have not found an obvious name that would point to it, nor have I read anything about such file in the different discussion forums. So no success on this.
I have even used scripts in the past for deleting duplicates and merging contacts in Entourage, but I have not found one for Address Book that could take care of the massive number of empty entries with "No Name".
So, is there a way to delete all my contacts in Address Book?

There are two possibilities you can try:
1. Delete all your duplicate entries. You can try downloading and running this Applescript Remove Duplicates, which will create a group named Duplicates in Address Book, from which you should be able to delete those entries, by selecting the Group, then in the next column to the Right, select all the entries and choose Delete Cards from the Edit menu.
2. If that doesn't work, you can do this:
1. Quit Address Book if it's running.
2. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and delete an of these files/folders you find there:
• ABPerson.skIndex
• ABPerson.skIndexInverted
• Address Book - xxxxx.abbu
• AddressBook.data
• AddressBook.data.beforesave
• AddressBook.data.previous
• Images
• LastImport.plist
3. Restart Address Book and see if the default cards are there (Apple card, and your Me card) and if all seems to be working correctly.
Mulder

How to delete duplicate entries in address book

Is there an easy way to delete duplicate entries in Address Book?

I have an iPhone where I create new contact details and a MB Air running OX X 10.7.3
In Address Book I see duplicate entries across the whole book. The other day I was traveling without my MB and needed to urgently reach someone who's number I knew was in my iPhone contact list for sure but searched and search and couldn't find it.
Turns out that when I had been going through the Adress Book on the MB Air trying to eliminate some of the duplicates I had chosed --without even knowing it or realzing it-- the card that I guess sync with my iPhone. It was gone. Sure enough, when I got back and looked it up on the MB Air it was still there not syncing to my iPhone.
I have used Address Book / Card / Look for Duplicates ...
I have also followed the Help suggesting and pressed Control / select to highlight two duplicate cards and even though the First / Last / Company / phone numbers / etc. are all the same I get the message: "The cards could not be merged because they came from different accounts."
I have checked with guys from the office who have the exact same problem with no idea how to solve the problem.
Is it that in order to use Address Book on both an iPhone and an OS X machine you've just got to be smarter, more sophisticated, more IT oriented?
Seems like a pretty easy thing not to be struggling with.
I should mention that I was a Mobile Me subscriber and now use iCloud which I'm sure has something to do with all of this.
But it seems pretty basic to me. If I have an Address Book it should synchronize between OX X and IOS.

View Duplicate Entries in Address Book

Does anyone know how you can view your duplicate entries in Address Book before you merge them?
Thank you!

books06,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
It depends upon which version of Address Book you are using, and your definition of "view."
1. Address Book 3.1.1 Help
2. Address Book 4.0.3 Help: Combining duplicate cards and information
To find and merge duplicate cards:
1. Choose Card > "Look for Duplicate Entries."
2. Address Book tells you if it finds duplicate cards, cards containing duplicated information, or both.
3. Click Merge to merge duplicate cards and remove redundant information on cards.
When Address Book merges duplicate cards, it creates a single card for the contact containing all of the unique information from each merged card. Address Book uses the picture from the merged card appearing first in the list.
To merge selected cards only, Command-click to select the cards you want to combine and choose Card > Merge Selected Cards. Address Book creates a single card using the name and picture of the selected card appearing first in the list.;~)

How do I create a duplicate card in Address Book?

I have searched and found plenty of posts on how to FIND, MERGE or DELETE duplicate cards in Address Book...
- But I want to CREATE a duplicate card. In other words, if I want to create separate cards for 2 married people with the same last name, address and home phone number, is there a fast way to create a second card without having to manually fill in all contact info?
Also, WHERE does one post Address Book questions? This was just a guess.
Thanks.
Robert

I think I understand your question and if so, this is a decently speedy workaround.
1) Create your first card with say the husbands name
2) Go to File > Export > Export vCard
3) Change the name of the card that is in Address Book to the other person ie. the wifes name
4) Go to File > Import > Import vCard (shortcut is Command+O)
5) Now you will have the original vCard you created which is the husbands name and you will have the wife's name as well because you just changed it.
You can import and export multiple vCards at once so you can create all of them, export them, change all the names, and then re import.
Hope this helps!
David

Double contacts in address book & iPhone

I have double contacts in my address book on my iMac and on my iPhone I have "linked cards". Does anyone know how to fix this? My sync is not checked in iTunes, so I don't think that is the problem. I have tried to "search for duplicates" in my address book, but it doesn't match anyone. Anything else I should try?
Thanks!

One reason you may have duplicates is that you have each contact listed under your 'iCloud' account AND under your 'on my mac' account. Only contacts in the iCloud account will sync.
Click on the ribbon in the Address Book to reveal 'Users & Groups', and then by selecting each account on the left side you will see which contacts are in which account. (make sure nothing is typed in the search field)
If this is the reason you have duplicates you have two options of dealing with the situation. Either you can leave the duplicates alone and click on one account or the other before clicking on the ribbon again to limit what you see to that account when you return to the main part of your Address Book.
Or you can delete all the contacts from one account (usually the 'on my mac' account if you want to continue syncing with iCloud). Click on the account you want to delete contacts from on the left side of the Address Book and select the first contact in the list on the right, shift click the last contact to select all and delete.
Finally, You may want to check your default account is set correctly in the Address Book preferences.

How do I manage duplicates in my address book

How do I manage duplicates in my address book.
I am using iOS 7 and iCloud

Hi nacnud1234,
If you are having issues with duplicates when using iCloud Contacts, you may find the following article helpful:
iCloud: Resolving duplicate Contacts after setting up iCloud Contacts
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4147
Regards,
- Brenden

How to delete ALL contacts in Address Book 10.6.3.(1091) in Macbook?

I made no effort ever to add the contents of my iPhone to my Macbook. Ever. Right now in my Skype app that I have only Just downloaded have I just found ALL of my iPhone contacts in it's contact list. NOT GOOD. I am looking for a way to remove my iPhone phone book from the Address Book on my Mac and then remove ALL those same contacts from the Skype contact list.
I am now removing my iPhone contacts from Address Book on my Macbook one by one manually. Is there a shorter way of doing this?

Are you using iCloud?
What is the file format you intend to use to import contacts? If it an Address Book Backup (.abbu) then perhaps you can import it. That would delete your entire Address Book and replace it with the backup.
I might suggest simply moving your entire ~/Library/Application Support/Address Book folder to the Desktop. That seems rather drastic though, and if your contacts are stored in iCloud it might not make a difference.

How to delete all contact in address book

Hi,
How to delete all contact in address book.
And disable the address book to sync with outlook 2011.
Using Macook pro 10.7.2

Actually I already copy all my cd,mp3 in my itunes I got 2457items song (all in my mac os hardisk).
Now I need to sync all my music and movie using icloud or itunes match.
I don;t want to use the cable. I wanted to sync using icloud or itunes match.
1. Can all the music and movie sync with icloud and direct sync with my iphone?
2. Or all music and movie using itunes match and sync into my iphone?
Is the cable only the way to sync all the music and movie.
Thank you.

Using O2M I imported my contacts into Address Book. However upon exiting the contacts are not saved. This is on a new Macbook Pro Lion OS. How does one save the newly imported contacts?

Using the program O2M I successfully imported emails from Outlook 2003 to Mail, and calendar events to iCal. However, repeated attempts to import contacts to Address Book have failed. The contacts appear to import, but when I close Address Book and reopen it, the contacts are gone. I tried File-Save, but Save is greyed out. This is a new Macbook Pro with the latest Lion OS. I wonder if O2M has not been updated to work with Lion. Or is there something I am overlooking in the import process?

Hi Denisej and others who have encountered the same problem,
I tried your work around. Unfortunately it did not work out for me because in my contacts there are an unknown number that still "refused" to be imported like that. When such a contact was in the group I selected for import the whole lot would be lost again after re-opening Address Book. Finally that meant that I had to import each contact one-by-one, each time with the need to close down Address Book. A job to go nuts and end up with a mouse injury. So I decided to use the Migration Assistant that Lion now offers
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3284404
together with Windows Migration Assitant on my old PC. Obviously both Mac and PC have to be on the same network. For this I did not need to do anything special. Both make use of the same router and that is apparently sufficient. When migrating the contacts Lion creates a new account, so you need to log in to that new account to see your migrated contacts. I used the Export Address Book Archive function in the Address Book menu to copy the lot to my own Apple account. I got rid of the new account and I was finally where I wanted to be in the first place.
Kees

Can I overwrite contacts in Address book with my iPod Touch contacts?

I'm an idiot - I somehow managed to delete ALL of my contacts in Address book. I don't use Time Machine (not enough external HD space) so I can't restore that way.
I did happen to sync my iPod Touch shortly before I deleted everything so my contacts are fine there. Short of re-typing everything into Address Book, is there a way I can tell iTunes to overwrite my contacts with the ones from the iPod touch?
It's the only place I have my contacts - and because I enabled Google sync, it deleted all of my Google contacts too! HELP!!

If you sync, the contacts will be copied back into Address Book on your Mac. You should get an error message that pops from iSync (a warning about changing more than 5% of your data), which you should Allow.
In case you're worried, I have tested this (backed up my address book, then deleted the contents, then synced and my contacts were restored from my IPT).
Hope this helps...

Thousands of duplicate contacts in Address Book

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