Contacts disappear immediately after creation

I add a contact (Firstname, Lastname, Phone, Email) and save it.

After a few seconds, presumably when macOS tries to sync it to Gmail and/or iCloud, it disappears.


I have a Gmail account and an iCloud account, when I add the contact via the Android app, it stays in the Gmail address book and it gets synced into macOS.


What can I do do make macOS contacts work again?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), contacts

Posted on Dec 25, 2017 3:09 AM

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Posted on Dec 25, 2017 8:11 AM

Might be a corrupt .plist.


Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.


Quit the application.


Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.


Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.


If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.


Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Question marked as ⚠️ Top-ranking reply

Dec 25, 2017 8:11 AM in response to rhuf

Might be a corrupt .plist.


Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.


Quit the application.


Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.


Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.


If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.


Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Contacts disappear immediately after creation

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