Address Book "Merge Cards" is losing unique information

Question

Address Book "Merge Cards" is losing unique information

The Merge Cards function has stopped working. Instead of combining all the info on two cards, it preserves only some of it. I can't see how it selects which info it preserves, but it is certainly not all that it should preserve. What can I do to restore the old functionality?

iMac Intel Core2Duo (and Powerbook 12"), Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 22, 2010 2:24 PM

Reply

Answer 1

May 23, 2010 2:58 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

i noticed the same thing.
i seem to remember it collating the information and merging all unique data. since 10.6.2, at least , i've noticed this problem too.

Reply

Answer 2

Aceluck

Level 1

0 points

May 31, 2010 2:11 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

Same problem here, I've suddenly started losing phone numbers as well.
I sync iphone and ipad with mac and mobile me, and somewhere, something goes wrong.
The distinction between "on my iphone contacts" and "mobile me contacts" is also very confusing.
This used to work beautifully with iSync in the old days, what gives?

Reply

Answer 3

Funklord

Level 1

6 points

Jun 5, 2010 6:24 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

Honestly this could be avoided so easily with a preview of the merge/replace.

Silly that it isn't something already available.

Reply

Answer 4

penx

Level 1

120 points

Aug 22, 2010 10:46 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

Really irritating, still in 10.6.4, I'm hoping this is a bug that will be fixed soon and not a bizarre 'feature'.

I don't think anyone would want to lose data when merging cards, so no idea why this has been changed intentionally, must be a bug. If I merge my whole address by via looking for duplicates then I lose data without being told which data/which contacts are being deleted. I imagine a lot of users will be losing data without realising (especially as this feature used to work correctly).

Reply

Answer 5

kohlgill

Level 1

4 points

Sep 5, 2010 10:03 AM in response to penx

Very frustrating. Is there a way we can individually report this to Apple?

Reply

Answer 6

mayall

Level 1

29 points

Oct 21, 2010 10:50 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

Just chiming in to say that I am also seeing unique information lost when I do a merge.

Reply

Answer 7

Jan 3, 2011 10:25 PM in response to mayall

Have just spent much more time than I should have to manually checking and merging info because of this disappearing data issue. It happens when the cards both have a category labelled the same way is, 'home', 'work', etc. What I'm seeing is that it includes only one of the numbers if they are not labelled differently. This is a MAJOR setback of a feature that worked well because there is now no way to trust the Look For Duplicates function. I use it a lot for clients to help clean up data from various computers, etc. I am also seeing other bugginess and it is very frustrating, especially when I suggest that people shell out the $99 so they can keep all their iDevices in sync seamlessly. It hasn't been fixed in 10.6.5 either btw. COME ON APPLE!

Reply

Answer 8

Macisaur

Level 1

9 points

Jan 8, 2011 1:34 PM in response to Jamie Gardiner

I too have seen this "Look for Duplicates and Merge" problem. Here is my workaround:

Open Address Book. When you find duplicate Cards, drag one of the Cards from the Name List to the Desktop. A vCard will appear on the Desktop. Delete that Card and only that Card from the list. Go to File > and click Import. In the Finder Window select the vCard you put on the Desktop and click Open. A message will appear stating there is a duplicate. Click Review Duplicates. This menu allows you to see what will change when you merge the two. Select Update and click Import. Now they are Merged. I think this is a better way than cutting and pasting between two Cards.

Reply

Answer 9

dwb_dwb

Level 1

0 points

Feb 6, 2011 1:31 PM in response to Jamie Gardiner

I too am experiencing frustrating difficulties with Apple Address Book.

I am trying to merge my Gmail contacts with my Address Book contacts (and then with an export via Yahoo Address Book of my Facebook contacts).

The problem is that in Gmail I keep everyone's old email addresses on their contact card to make it easier to find old emails from the same person... you know when someone has moved from job to job.

I name these in Gmail as "Old" and often there are up to 5-6 emails.. some "Home", some "Work" and some my custom "Old".

When I import the Apple VCF export from Gmail into Apple Address Book it tells me there are duplicates. I click on review duplicates. A whole lot of information is not being preserved when the two cards are being "merged".... it just deletes stuff randomly

:X

Any assistance as to how to get around this would be appreciated!

Cheers.

Reply

Answer 10

May 25, 2011 2:09 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

I have reported this problem (when two contacts are merged and there are contact details with identical labels, i.e. work phone, info from on side is deleted without warning) to Apple Care in February 2010. After discovering that this is a software bug instead of something having to do with individual preferences etc., I was told that the issue had been reported to the OS development team and I should look out for a fix in a future update. At the time, AppleCare told me that this had been the first report of the matter. Unfortunately, it is still not fixed. I still think this is a severe problem, especially because many users will lose lots of contact data before they realize what is going on.

Reply

Answer 11

Aug 14, 2011 2:12 PM in response to metropolist

It doesn't looke like Apple will fix this bug in Snow Leopard. Can anyone comment on whether the issue persists in Lion?

As a heads up to everyone who is holding off upgrading to Lion, do NOT use the provided "Merge Selected Cards" feature in the Contacts App. You WILL lose data.

Reply

Answer 12

Aug 19, 2011 3:29 AM in response to Toggle Media

The Lion behaves. The Address Book does not lose any more information when merging Cards. Conflicting data is moved to the "Notes" section of the card, multiple phone numbers with identical labels are allowed.

Reply

Answer 13

Aug 29, 2011 1:42 PM in response to Jamie Gardiner

I am disturbed by the amount of missing content or lost contacts from my recent sync which was a "merge."

I did this before backing up on time machine and now I've lost a lot of data, contacts and research.

I have an iPhone, iMac G5, older version w/o intel chip and a Mac Mini, which is a refurbished model.

My iMac was the original "master." Now using the Mac Mini, and figured merge would combine the two.

I thought merge would do just that, leave everything, but add things that weren't there.

What to do now? And in the future.

Reply

Answer 14

Mar 14, 2012 7:57 AM in response to metropolist

Unfortunately, and opposed to metropolist's observation, Lion (10.7.2) does delete information upon merge. Selecting two unidentical contact cards and executing the Merge Selected Cards command deletes both cards. The command cannot be used without data loss retrievable only via backup restore, which undoes the merge and thereby sets the command out of use altogether, boiling it all down to: In the current version of Address Book, Cards cannot be merged.

Reply

Answer 15

Mar 27, 2012 5:36 AM in response to Jamie Gardiner

I experienced the same thing and lost some data already. But, someone did mention to change the field type and now the merge works!

If both cards have the same field labeled "mobile", then I changed the other one to "main". The merged card will have two numbers: one for "mobile" while the other for "main". Since the person carries two mobile numbers, I just edited the merged card to change the "main" into "mobile". So now, the person has two mobile numbers in his card.

Tedious but definitely easier than cut and paste info between two cards.

Reply