Time Machine backup automatically deletes address book

I accidentally deleted all contacts in address book. When i attempt to restore the address book from time machine, the address book is restored then automatically deletes all contacts again.

In case it will help anyone else, this is the rather complicated procedure worked out with Apple Support to restore Address Book to an earlier state. Hopefully Apple will consider a switch of some sort to restart or re-initialize the contacts which would greatly simplify the procedure.
If using iCloud, uncheck Contacts box in System Preferences>iCloud
Quit Address Book
Restore Address Book folder in User/LIbrary/Application Support to previous version with Time Machine
Trash all Address Book preferences in User Library/Preferences
Log Out/In or Restart
Start Address Book and verify desired address book version is now available
If not using iCloud you are done, otherwise you need to create new Address Book Folder with current file dates that contains desired previous data
First Go to Web version of iCloud Contacts and erase all contacts
From Address Book Export vCard with All Contacts
Export vCard for each manually defined group
Quit Address Book
Trash Address Book folder in User/Library/Application Support
Trash all Address Book preferences in User Library/Preferences
Log Out/In or Restart
Start Address Book and Import vCard with All Contacts
Import vCard for each defined group one at a time and:
Check review duplicates and keep new
Select Last Import for each group and manually assign to Group Name
Re-Check Contacts box in System Preferences>iCloud
New address book should populate to iCloud and other devices

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Can't get old time machine backups to delete from the trash can

time machine backups won't delete from my trash can

You shouldn't be deleting old Tima Machine backups. When TM runs out of space it automatically deletes the oldest backups to make rioom for the new
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

Accidentally I have deleted my Time Machine Backup but deleted files are in the Trash !

Hi Folks,
Accidentally deleted my Time Machine backkups but all files are in the Trash. I am copying my files from Trash folder to another Portable Drive just incase I will not be able to restore my files as Put Back is not working because seems Time Machine backups is a part large database.
Is there anyway I can restore the files to Time Machine again? If there is, could you please tell me step by step ! If there is not any procedures, please advise me what should I do in this stage?
Thanks in advance.

The following excellent Support articles may help you with that:
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

How can Time Machine backup automatically when your external hard drive isn't connected?

Everywhere I search, it says that Time Machine will automatically backup every 24 hours and so on.
However, I was wondering - how can these automatic backups take place if you are backing up to an external hard drive which is not always connected?
Is this to say that if you do not connect your external hard drive for a day, no backups will be done that day?
Thank you

If the drive is not connected then TM pauses until the drive becomes available. Yes, if the drive isn't connected then there are no backups.
A whole lot about Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.

Time Machine backups to WD My Book Live terribly slow

I got a Western Digital My Book Live for Christmas and have set it up to take Time Machine backups over my home Wifi network.
Unlike many other posts I've seen, my initial backup took a reasonable amount of time in my opinion. My initial backup was about 400 GB and it did it over night in about 12 hours. I did however plug my Macbook into my router via ethernet in hopes that would be faster (the My Book is also plugged into the same router via ethernet). This was 2-3 weeks ago.
Since then, I have set Time Machine to off as I use my Macbook at work each day and manually tell Time Machine to backup when I'm at home with my computer. I didn't want Time Machine to constantly have errors while looking for my backup disc when I was at work and not at home.
I have been trying to a manual backup all weekend now with no luck. I have approximately 5 GB to backup, and Time Machine is only backing up 50 MB an hour if that. I have even plugged in my computer via ethernet again.
Any ideas on how to speed this up? I've also read a lot about Spotlight indexing slowing TM down, but I don't think Spotlight is indexing right now.

Rick Wall wrote:
Time Machine is only backing up 50 MB an hour if that.
Agreed that is crazy slow.
WD use to be problematic for Macs, is this still the case?
Did you you reformat the WD with the correct partitioning scheme and format ; and get rid of the proprietary backup software?
Also TimeMachine if left on, can take local snapshots, and maybe be a benefit to you.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11394
Does not answer your question I know.

Time Machine will not restore Address Book entry

I noticed that one Address Book entry has become 'corrupted' possibly when synched with my mobile phone. The name had become truncated and I had lost my notes and address details, retaining just the telephone numbers. When I access Time Machine I can see the original file. When I click restore it 'drags' this file to the current desktop, and the file appears for half a second within the address book and then disappears. When I do restore all it asks me whether I want to import all records and allows me to deal with duplicates, but still nothing is restored. What is going on?

I think you may be missing step:
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.
If Time Machine isn’t in the Dock, look for it in the Applications folder.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the backups Time Machine has created.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it.
The windows 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.
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.

Time Machine did not restore Address Book Contacts!!! HELP!!!

I have an iPhone. I had to get a new one because the old one was acting all weird after the latest update.
I have a MacBook. I had to reformat the hard drive so I can partition part of it off for Windows (for work, puke.)
When I reinstalled Leopard on my MacBook, I uploaded the information from the latest back-up on Time Machine. This did not, however, restore my contacts. I have a metadata folder which contains a lot of files which are supposed to be people's information, but nothing will open these files. I really need my contacts back. Can someone help?
I ran Time Machine just about every day while my computer was home and just copied over my entire Library folder before reformatting my computer. Is the information somewhere in there? How do I get it back?
This is very frustrating. The applications and music and stuff came back fine, why not my contacts? This makes me doubt whether Time Machine is a reliable back-up.

i will try the restore all feature, but i already restored everything except applications and nothing came back. there were some old stuff that i didn't want restored (deleted files/programs) so i did not do that restore all.
when i open address book, then time machine, for some reason nothing shows up. my home folder was renamed in the process (perhaps without me knowing i was doing so.) would that matter? i can still access all the files through the backup, but i can't access address book through time machine and i cannot open the contact information in any programs. they are all there, but they won't open.

Time Machine backups and deleted photos

I backed up my Mac to Time Machine using an external hard drive. This then began to run out of space and i received the subsequent warning messages.
Now comes the stupidity (I think), I decided to delete all the photos from my Mac in the thought that they would remain on the Time Machine. I'm now thinking that this is a horrendous error and I have lost all the images from 2009 (when I first purchased the Mac) to 2011 (When i did the above).
I apologise if this is so stupid that it doesn't warrent an answer, but I hope someone takes pity on me.
Thanks

Sorry.. I keep thinking in the Time Capsule discussion area we are talking about TC..
If you copied the pictures to the WD drive then none of this would have happened.. it is the fact you deleted them from the Mac and assumed you would then have a backup inside the TM.
I know it is well after the event but Pondini in that same FAQ states with extreme clarity
20. Once my Mac is backed-up, can I delete some stuff to save space?
NO, NO, NO! That's a terrible idea !
See Q20. for the rest of why not.. the disk is slowly filled with current changes to file.. If you manipulate a large file it is backed up every hour.. it takes very little time to fill up the disk.. especially if it is so small.
Once full TM simply deletes from the backup what is deleted on the Mac.. since you obviously no longer think it important.
Actually you should read the whole thing about how TM works.. as it thins backups on a daily and then weekly basis, and there is no telling when it will delete your files, once they are gone from the Mac.
You don't have to copy the existing backup.. just buy another USB drive.. a decent size one this time.. and USB3 for future use.. 2TB or greater. And start a new backup to that.. Include the iphoto library in it.. but also copy the files manually so you have a backup unrelated to Time Machine.
Actually I would spend the money and buy Carbon Copy Cloner (or like backup software) as it does a better job of creating a backup of your files. You can also make a bootable clone of your existing hard disk.. that is hugely superior to the way TM works to get a dead drive computer running again.
Learn the lesson.. we all have to lose something before the knowledge we should backup is hammered home.. it is just sad it is digital photos which are so valuable and irreplaceable.. No amount of backup is too much for digital photos.. you are a few seconds from disaster and losing everything once you move away from films and negatives that can be reprinted for years and years.

Clean install selective restore from time machine backup

Hi,
My harddisk crashed, and I have just installed a new harddrive.
I have just installed a fresh OS and am wondering if it is possible to selective restore stuff from my time machine backup.
I only want to restore some of my data file.
When I plugin my time machine backup. the preference pane does recognize that i have previous backup. But when I go into time machine state, the older stuff doesn't show up.
how can i get my old files back?
I can't see anything from before I changed my harddisk and did a few reinstall of the OS.

Restoring specific files or folders
While your backup disk is connected, click the Time Machine icon in the Dock and the Time Machine restore interface appears. You can literally see your windows as they appeared "back in time." Note: If you use FileVault, you cannot browse for individual items in your Home folder. However, you can restore all files and folders by using the Restore System from Backup feature of the Mac OS X Installer.
You can use the timeline on the right side of the window to reach a certain point back in time (the timeline shows the times of all backups on your backup disk). If you don’t know exactly when you deleted or changed a file, you can use the back arrow to let Time Machine automatically travel through time to show you when that folder last changed.
You can also perform a Spotlight search in the Time Machine Finder Window search field to find a file. Simply type the Spotlight search field and use the back arrow to have Time Machine search through your backups to find what you are looking for.
Before you restore a file, you can also use Quick Look to preview a file to make sure its the one you want. Highlight the file and press the Space Bar to bring up a preview.
To restore, select the file/folder and click the "Restore" button. The file will automatically be copied to the desktop or appropriate folder. If the file you are restoring has another file in the same location with the same name, you will be prompted to choose which file to keep or keep both.
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup disk connected, start up your Mac from your Mac OS X v10.5 or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. After starting up, use the Restore System from Backup feature of the Mac OS X Installer.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
If you are restoring a backup made by one Mac to a completely different Mac
Important: If the backup you are about to restore is from a completely different Mac, use the Migration Assistantto transfer data from the backup, as described in the next section.
Restoring a Time Machine backup on a new Mac
When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made.
You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use the Migration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities).
If you use a Time Capsule, see Restoring files from a Time Capsule backup.
Deleting data from a Time Machine backup
To delete all backups of one or more items from a Time Machine backup, follow these steps:
Click the Time Machine icon on your Dock to enter the Time Machine restore interface.
Click on the item you would like to delete. Command-click to select multiple items.
Control-click (or right click) the highlighted item(s) and select "Delete All Backups of..." from the contextual menu, or select "Delete all backups of..." from the Action Item menu.
Authenticate with an administrator password when prompted.
Important: Do not use the Finder to move to the items to the Trash, or to move or delete items in your Time Machine backup repository. The folder containing your Time Machine backup repository is called "Backups.backupd" and is located on the external disk or Time Capsule you have chosen in Time Machine preferences.

How do i increase capacity in my basic memory when i have unused memory in my time machine backup??

how do i increase capacity in my basic memory when i have unused memory in my time machine backup?

No. The Time Machine backup size will increase as you use the source machine. When it nears its volume's capacity limit Time Machine will automatically delete old backups according to its algorithm. Just let it work.

Does Time Machine backup playlists?

I reinstalled my OS and I thought that I'd be able to restore everything from Time Machine. Wrong. Every restore ended in failure and so I have to drag everything from the backups manually. Anyway, I was able to get my music library back but I can't seem to locate my playlists. Where does iTunes store them? I was using Time Machine to back up everything except my system files so my playlists should be there somewhere. If it's the file ending in .xml I can't seem to locate it.

To restore everything from a Time Machine backup automatically, you have to start from the 10.5 DVD. This would not be very practical for you as you did not include the System folder in you back up.
As for your playlists, assuming you did not change the default settings, are located in:
your user name/Music/iTunes Music.
Both the "iTunes Library.xml" and the" iTunes Library" database file need to be copied back.

Sophos found a virus and trojan in Time Machine backup. What to do?

I ran Sophos Anti-Virus last night and it found two Windows viruses (one of them is Troj/20120158-P, a trojan, the other is Mal/TibsPk-A, a "malicious behavior" type). Both are attachments on emails that are in Time Machine only. Obviously I'm not worried about them affecting the Mac, but I'd like to avoid accidentally sending them to some poor victim who's using Windows.
I can track down the files by going into the drive and manually deleting them, but would that mess up Time Machine? Is there a better solution?
Thanks!

You should never poke around in your Time Machine backups to delete files in the Finder. That can damage the backups. You also should make sure that Sophos does not attempt to quarantine files from your Time Machine backup. In fact, you probably should ensure that Sophos (and any other anti-virus software) never touches your Time Machine backups in any way, even just for scanning. Let Sophos do its job of keeping the malware off your main hard drive, and leave Time Machine alone to back up freely without interference.
As for how to handle those e-mail messages in your backups, I would just leave them. They're not doing any harm there, and there's almost no chance that a chain of circumstances would arise that would result in you restoring those messages and then sending them to a Windows user. They will eventually be removed from your backups, when the backup drive fills up and Time Machine has to start removing the oldest deleted files from the backup to make room for new stuff.

Time Machine Backup and storing certain files, switching to lion

Hey Gang,
I need to unload my harddrive.
Whats the best way to do this? I want to keep some files off my harddrive to free up space. But i want to access them anytime. Should i just do i time machine backup then delete the files and still have access to them? Or should i keep the files out seperate from a time machine backup.
what do you think?
also, i'm getting a 2 tb drive to do a time machine so i can switch over to lion, and if i dont like it, switch back. Any idea's on that front?
Thanks

I woke up 05:00 a.m this morning, so I'll try to grab my coffe and be more specific:
Of course, in general you should not delete backups.
But:
1) How does your Time Machine Volume react/get filled if you happen to MOVE 100 GB of files between backuped volumes, for instance?
2) If the license for Leopard and Snow Leopard or other software, REQUIRES me to delete all copies of the software from the machine, I need to know a) How I delete all backups of the Snow Leopard partition files. And b) Other software: if the App spreads itself into Libraries, Caches and whatever places, I actually need to know more of the general subject on how I according to the legalese and my own wish, need to find such places in the file system. And delete all copies in Time Machine backups.
I am familiar with the general principle of never deleting anything if I do not have to. I have zillions of mail files from the nineties still left in my Mail folders. Never do something that is hard to reverse, if there is not good reason for it.
I am new to participating in the Communities, so, yes I'll try to keep the discussion to what the question was!
But right now - please if anyone could answer the problem I already described here, I would be thankful. I'll not argue that Time Machine deletions has to do with the general problem of exactly how Apps occupy the file system.
But I now realise that I could ctrl-click my Snow Leopard partition and delete it from the Time Machine volume. I'll try that when I get so far!
Thanks!
/groundliner

Address Book - retrieving contacts from Time Machine backup

The only back up of my address book that I have is on a Time Machine backup for my old computer which I no longer have.
I have a new computer that I did not do a migration to (from my old computer). But I want to put my contacts from the Time Machine backup (from my old computer) onto my new computer.
How can i do this????
Thank you!

I had the same problem,(Only I'm trying to recover Contacts after my HD crashed) followed the path, you suggested, and installed in the new HD address book folder, only had to go back and delete the other files that were in new Address book folder, that did not match the old folder.
And Hallelujah!!!! 153 cards were restored thank you very much!!!

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups. I use a synology DS212 for my time machine. Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014. As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012. Not sure what that is.

This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
I had a major computer crash and through complicated pathways ended up reinstalling (Mavericks) as a new user (long story).
At least I had good Time Machine backups on an NAS drive (Synology DS212j), or so I thought - when I started Time Machine up again, the old backup file was gone, replaced by a new one using my "new computer" name. The old file was gone both by directly mounting the NAS drive and by clicking "Enter Time Machine".
It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
(I have spent a week finding old files elsewhere and have completed a satisfactory self-restore. It pays to "archive" [my own variation of] as well as "back-up".)
My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
But this is an NAS drive, connected directly to my Airport wireless router, and I don't know the significance of the fact that it stores its Time Machine backups as "sparsebundle" files rather than simply as plain(er) files.
As usual when things get complicated with computers (not just Apple computers) there was never a warning message. Something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DELETE A TIME MACHINE BACK-UP FILE!!!" would have made my life a lot simpler.
BTW, I did try a "restore from Time Machine" option the first thing I had my "new computer" (old hardware, 2009 iMac) up and running, using Migration Assistant, and it ran for many hours and then failed in the wee hours - what that has to do with anything I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
Charles

Time Machine backup automatically deletes address book

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