Dozza
Level 1 (7 points)

Q: Share & Merge contacts within Family

We have family sharing going on which is working fine for purchases through the app store etc.

 

What I'd like to also do is merge and sync two sets of contacts and have these shared between my wife and I. We both have separate Apple ID's and separate user accounts on home iMac. We then have, several devices each locked to our Apple ID's.

 

So we both got separate contacts, with a lot of overlap, and would ideally like to effectively merge them together and read from 1 set that we can both then maintain, that would sync to all our devices.

 

Is that possible and how we we go about that?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 Mid 2011

Posted on Sep 13, 2015 9:25 AM

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Dozza

Q: Share & Merge contacts within Family

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  • by Brett L,

    Brett L Brett L Sep 14, 2015 12:25 PM in response to Dozza
    Community Specialists
    Sep 14, 2015 12:25 PM in response to Dozza

    Greetings Dozza,

     

    You ask an interesting question about how to bring together all of your family's contacts so that everyone can use them on multiple devices and merging the lists that you have now. Yes it is possible. Let's see if we can get you on the way to using the Contacts apps effectively.

     

    It sounds as if you want to use only one account for all of your contacts, which is a good approach. I would suggest using Apple's iCloud service. Since you are using Family Sharing, you already have iCloud. 

     

    You will need to decide which of your iCloud accounts you wish to use for all of your contacts. It is not really important which one you use as you will be importing all of the contacts from the other account to this one. Let's call the chosen account X and the other Y.

    1. Use the Contacts app from your Mac user account that has account Y on it to export all it's contacts. See this article for how to do this - Contacts (Yosemite): Export contacts.
    2. Put the exported file in the folder named Shared, which is in this user's home folder. This allows another user to access it. See this article - OS X Yosemite: Access another Mac user’s Public folder and Drop Box.
    3. Switch to the other user's account on the Mac.
    4. Retrieve the exported contacts file from the first user's Public folder. It's probably easiest to place it on the Desktop.
    5. Launch the Contacts app in this user. Use the steps in this article to import the contacts file - Contacts (Yosemite): Import contacts.
    6. To eliminate any duplicate contacts, follow the steps in this article - If you see duplicate contacts after setting up iCloud Contacts.

    This user account now has all of your contacts in it's iCloud Contacts. What remains is to set up access to this iCloud account in other user accounts on this Mac, and on other devices.

    1. Switch back to the other user account (the one that was originally using iCloud account Y) on the Mac.
    2. If the user of this account was not previously using iCloud for Contacts, skip to step 5.
    3. Go to System Preferences (under the Apple menu) > Internet Accounts.
    4. Select the iCloud account that was being used and deselect the checkbox next to Contacts. 
    5. Quit System Preferences and go to the Contacts application.
    6. From the Contacts menu > Add Account > select iCloud and click Continue.
    7. Enter the account details for account X and click Sign In. See this article - Contacts (Mavericks): Manage your contacts

    Any other Macs that you want to set up with this contacts account can be set up similarly.

     

    Next we need to do the same for any iOS devices that were previously using account Y.

    1. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Accounts.
    2. If this device was not previously using iCloud for Contacts skip to step 5.
    3. Select the iCloud account that is already here.
    4. Deselect the Contacts toggle.
    5. Go back to Accounts and select Add Account. Select iCloud as the account type.
    6. Enter the iCloud information for account X.
    7. Make sure that the Contacts toggle is selected, along with only the other services you want to use on this device from that account. Tap Save. See this help article - Contacts settings - iPhone

    That should do it!

     

    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

     

    Be well.