updated to macOs Sequoia now contacts gone

I spent 1 hr with Apple support. Nothing worked, btw they were not aware of this issue. Don't know if it might help, but when we tried creating another user (with admin privilege) on the same Mac and connected it to my iCloud account the contacts synced 🤯

UPDATE:

Like others here have posted, I also successfully tested the new user scenario:

1. Create a brand new user on the exact same Mac (no MacOs changes)
2. Log into exact same iCloud account.
3. Open Contacts app. (In my case, address book was fully intact.)

Side note: There also happened to already be a second family user with another iCloud account on this same Mac. There was never any corruption/syncing issues with that account, only on my account, and only for Contacts. It is definitely a user-based issue, and not for all users.

The data for some particular users must have been corrupted during MacOs Sequoia 15.0 install... and despite removing the associated Library files (AddressBook support folder and any com.apple.AddressBook files, etc.), the corrupted data remains somewhere on system.

Hopefully a future update may provide a fix (??), otherwise, the only solution I've found is recreating the corrupted user, then migrate any non-iCloud-synced files over the duplicated user. Fortunately for me, I moved everything non-iCloud to an external drive years ago.

The point is, it didn’t wipe all contacts from the Mac. The Contacts app seems unable to display them, regardless of the provider (e.g., iCloud or Google). However, using the Shortcuts app to display contacts showed that all contacts are still on the Mac. The same applies to the Alfred app and Mail. I contacted German Apple Support via phone, and after a few days of investigation, they informed me that this problem is known and should be fixed with version 15.1.

Yes, since these guys didn't read the stuff here. I can only repeat it again and again, it's not about syncing, it's about a strange behavior of the contacts app on macOS (15.0, 15.01 and 15.1) for some people.

I think the only way that helps is to contact support, repeatedly pointing out that this isn’t a syncing issue and that you’re not alone or an isolated case anymore. The big question is why Apple publications, which usually report on every little bug, aren’t writing about this very strange bug. BTW, one option my contact at Apple Support also considered was moving my user account on the Mac to a newly created one. However, they wanted to avoid that. Keep pushing support! This works even without AppleCare. And stop posting fixes for syncing issues here—that’s not what this bug is about. Anyone who reads through this threat from the beginning will see that we’ve already tried all of that **** and much more.

Think I have this figured out.

I had multiple folders called "Contacts" in ~/Library/Containers/. At least the Finder was calling them "Contacts".

If you copy them to the Desktop you see they are actually named "com.apple.AddressBook", "com.apple.PeopleViewService", "com.apple.PeopleViewService.PeopleWidget-macOS".

Assuming you have all your contacts safe and sound in icloud, try the following:

1. Turn off contacts syncing in your icloud settings.
2. Close the Contacts.app.
3. In the Finder, click the Go menu then Go to Folder and paste in: ~/Library/Containers
4. In there, look to see if you have multiple folders called "Contacts". Drag all of them to the Desktop.
5. Now turn contact syncing back on in icloud settings and open the Contacts.app.

Hopefully everything is groovy after that. If it is, I think you can safely delete those folders dragged to the desktop.

Thanks so much, Nick, your method fixed the issue!!!!

Here is again from Nick's post:

Assuming you have all your contacts safe and sound in icloud, try the following:

1. Turn off contacts syncing in your icloud settings.

2. Close the Contacts.app.

3. In the Finder, click the Go menu then Go to Folder and paste in: ~/Library/Containers

4. In there, look to see if you have multiple folders called "Contacts". Drag all of them to the Desktop.

5. Now turn contact syncing back on in icloud settings and open the Contacts.app.

Hopefully everything is groovy after that. If it is, I think you can safely delete those folders dragged to the desktop.

UPDATE: PROBLEM RESOLVED!! Engineering suggested as the next step to once again erase the machine and reinstall Sequoia, this time choosing to restore the hard drive files from Time Machine later instead of doing it as part of the reinstall process. Once Sequoia was on the machine I was able to launch the it with nothing but the basic OS and I could confirm that the Contacts were appearing in the Address Book. Then I restored the data, apps, etc. from my Time Machine backup and the Contacts remained in tact. So glad this is finally resolved, although I have noticed that I now have hundreds of files (perhaps thousands) appearing in the Recents view with a Date Added of August 16, 1970 (though all the other dates appear to be correct).

On Nov 1 I upgraded from Ventura to Sequoia (skipped Sonoma completely because of some other apps I use) and all my Contacts disappeared. As stated by others, it’s obviously not a synching problem since I can still see the Contacts on my iPhone and iPad. 

I tried the data recovery option from iCloud. Also tried the export/import function from iCloud. When neither worked I called support the day after the installation. It was escalated to advanced support pretty quickly. I have probably spent 15 hours on the phone with the support tech since then, averaging of 1-2 phone calls a week trying to debug the problem. I’ve made screen recordings of the fixes suggested here (except creating a new user) which were analyzed by Engineering, and followed their recommendations about disabling certain files related to other internet accounts. A few days ago the support person had me create a new volume on my machine (MacBook M2 Pro) and do a fresh install of Sequoia there. It worked flawlessly and my contacts came in, thus confirming that it is an issue with a corrupt Profile according to support. So, I agreed to erase my machine, reinstall Sequoia, and restore from my Time Machine backup. Everything seemed to go perfectly, but to my utter disappointment, I still have no Contacts on the Mac. It will be interesting to see what the next step is, but after reading this entire thread I don’t think I should hold my breath for a fix any time soon.

Interesting Ron,

I tried all that you mention with the same results. However, then added another user I named "Test", signed into my iCloud account and hey presto contacts were there. So looks like the issue is somewhere in the user configurations.

Then wiped the hard drive completely and re-installed Sonoma. Again updated to Sequoia and Contacts not showing.

Currently gone back to Sonoma until Apple supplies a patch.

Stephen

I wrestled with this same problem for several days on Sequoia 15.3. Nick's instructions didn't work, nor did several other instructions for deleting various folders or files. However, the following simple trick did work:

1. I opened the Contacts app.
2. While the Contacts app is in the foreground, I launched Time Machine.
3. The contacts reappeared in the Time Machine display.
4. I exited Time Machine, without doing a restore.

The contacts were still there after exiting Time Machine.

Synching works, all your contacts are sync'ed to your Mac, but the contact app didn't show them. That's the problem Apple has to fix. Still hope this will happens with 15.1. As I wrote before you can also use apps like Alfred or Raycast to access your contacts on the Mac until Apple fixed the problem. I just installed and check Raycast, it works pretty good. You have only to enable the extension "Search Contacts".

Thank you Nick for pointing into right direction.

For the record: my problem is a broken synchronisation with Carddav server after updating to Sequoia. The synchronisation stopped and recreating the account did not help (authentication error) with Nextcloud and Baikal.

Deleting the files you mention was not enough. I have deleted virtually everything that had "contact" or "people" or "addressbook" in the name in my Library folder, in "Containers" and "Application Support" and also:

• Entire Library/Contacts/ content
• File: Library/SyncedPreferences/contactsdonationagent.plist

Then, after a reboot, magically, I was able to create my account (Carddav) and it connected, authenticated and correctly downloaded everything.

Problem solved with update 15.2 here on my side. All contacts visible again.

I have MacOS Sequoia updated to 15.1 but Contacts is still unable to display my contacts. Of course they are still on iCloud, iPad and iPhone.

On the Mac I installed another app (Cardhop) and it can display my Contacts, so they are still there but the bug in Contact has not been fixed.