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Contacts missing after updating to big sur

My neighbor has an iMac (2017) He updated to Big Sur and all his contacts disappeared, We tried going to iCloud and they are not there either (there are a few that he started to re enter) We tried using time machine and there is nothing showing going way back . Not sure what else to try.

Thanks

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 1, 2021 12:32 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 11, 2021 2:11 PM

You could check his Yahoo settings:

  1. Open Mail
  2. In the menu bar, click Mail
  3. Click Accounts
  4. In the left panel, select the Yahoo account
  5. Make sure Contacts is selected. If it is, turn it off and turn it on again (this is a trick to force the Mac to reload the data)


I don't know how much time it takes for the contacts to be synched; it may be instantaneous or take more than a few minutes.

12 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 11, 2021 2:11 PM in response to Judy Barnett

You could check his Yahoo settings:

  1. Open Mail
  2. In the menu bar, click Mail
  3. Click Accounts
  4. In the left panel, select the Yahoo account
  5. Make sure Contacts is selected. If it is, turn it off and turn it on again (this is a trick to force the Mac to reload the data)


I don't know how much time it takes for the contacts to be synched; it may be instantaneous or take more than a few minutes.

May 5, 2021 12:38 PM in response to Judy Barnett

This is puzzling. Restart the Mac in Safe Mode (Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support). This will clean up the computer and fix potential issues. Note that Safe Mode can take a while to complete, i.e. more than 10 min depending on the computer.


Once in Safe Mode, restore the contacts following the steps in my previous post. Add a few more contacts for testing purposes. Then restart the iMac in normal mode. Then check that the test contacts are there on the iMac. Then go to iCloud.com and check that those contacts are also there.


Note that Time Machine is not going to help for missing contacts if the contacts are synch in iCloud. It would only work if they were local to the iMac.


If the issue recurs please contact Apple Support as I'm not sure what the root of the problem is: Get Support

May 12, 2021 8:59 AM in response to 6x6

That really seems like it should work but so far has not, I wonder if we remove the yahoo mail and re enter it? I worry about not having all the correct settings.


Really a crazy thing. Probably could have just re entered the contacts in all the time we have fooled with it. Just worried they will disappear again,


Thanks for all your help

Contacts missing after updating to big sur

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