macos Contacts copy to Numbers app excludes Note field

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Level 1

48 points

macos Contacts copy to Numbers app excludes Note field

I am helping a client that has a lot of corrupted data (primarily due to synchronization with the Microsoft Outlook app on their Mac) in their macOS Contacts. My intent has been to export all of the contacts to the Numbers app, fix the data, export the data to a CSV or (more likely, due to commas in the contacts data) TSV file, then import the file back into the macOS contacts (after deleting all of the old contacts in the Contacts app, of course).

However, after spending a bunch of time writing up the instructions on how to do this (so that I could post it to this forum for future use), I just discovered that when I drag the Contacts app contents to the Numbers app, the 'Note' field content is not carried over to the Numbers app.

Am I missing something?

There is always the option of 'Export vCard...' but (a) that won't handle contact photos, and (b) some of the corruption is on a separate line, so removing the corrupted data results in a blank line in the vCard file - and I don't know the impact of importing a vCard file with a bunch of blank lines.

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Air (2018 – 2020)

Posted on Mar 20, 2025 1:32 PM

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Answer 1

Zurarczurx

Level 5

4,053 points

Mar 21, 2025 2:35 AM in response to rckingsley

What exactly is the corruption?

You can extract the Notes field with Applescript and export it to a csv or Numbers file. You could script it to add, say, the surname to the note so you'd be able to either sort or match in Numbers to assign the right note to right contact.

Also - you're aware that drag and drop won't add columns. i.e. if the first bunch of contacts you drag don't have a "Birthday" entry then if you drag a contact later that has a Birthday set then it won' go across. You need to drag them all at once, once.

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Answer 2

rckingsley Author

Level 1

48 points

Mar 20, 2025 8:12 PM in response to rckingsley

Never mind with the above request (although the issue described above is still pertinent).

I’ve tested quite a number of ways to export / cleanup / replace macOS contacts, but was unable to find a way.

copying contacts to Numbers excludes the Note field (as described above)
exporting contacts from Numbers to any options (CSV, TSV, etc.) excludes pictures
Exporting contacts to to a VCF file retains all of the desired information, but a VCF file cannot be edited - so the ‘cleanup’ desire.
Even if a CSV / TSV file could contain pictures, mapping fields on import back to Contacts doesn’t handle everything

Unfortunately, the only recourse I can find is to manually update contacts one-at-a-time. My client has over 7,000 contacts - hence the desire to find a better way. Ah well…

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Answer 3

rckingsley Author

Level 1

48 points

Mar 22, 2025 10:08 AM in response to Zurarczurx

The corruption was information that was inserted into most of the client's contacts (over 4,000 were corrupted) as a result of the client being required to run Microsoft Outlook on their Mac. My 'hope' was to copy all of the contact information into a spreadsheet, remove the corrupted data, then somehow put the 'fixed' contacts back into the Contacts app.

Dragging all of the contacts (at one time, there were over 7,000 contacts) into Numbers looked like a great solution, except for the Notes not being copied. Yes, I agree (thanks for the suggestion) that I may have been able to write a script that would extract the notes and the contact name / company, then 'insert' the notes into a new field in the Numbers spreadsheet.

However, even if the Notes 'were' copied, there was no way to create a VCF file from the Numbers with all of the contacts (including pictures) into it.

Yeah, I could have possible created a CSV (or TSV) file, but that would have excluded pictures, and the field mapping didn't allow for some customization that the client name did with field names. Creating duplicate contacts and merging them would not have helped, because the corrupted data would still be in the 'merged' contact. Ah well...

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Apple support, and they didn't have any suggestions either. Looks like it is gonna be hand-to-hand combat (manually fixing each contact at a time).

Thanks for the suggestion.

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macos Contacts copy to Numbers app excludes Note field

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