iCloud Contacts Will Not Sync

thanks, I will have a look, although i don't get why i have 3 different amounts. I would uexpect the web and ios to have the same amount.

cheers

What version of IOS are you running?

I've had partial sync problems from the initial release of IOS 5.0 in October 2011 which only got fixed with IOS 5.1 in March this year!!

Prior to this I had complete sync between my MacBook and Mac Pro (239 items) but variable sync between my IOS devices (anything from 46 to 103 different sets of items!!)!! None of the fixes in this massive thread helped until the release of IOS 5.1.

Mind you even now (today) I have 239 on my Mac Pro and 234 on my iPhone but that's a significant improvement! All of my contacts were imported from MS Outlook which used to sync fine in the days of IOS 4.3 and a corporate email server but when I stopped using Outlook everything went crazy...

Hope this helps...

Have you tried any of the possible solutions to your problem in this or another thread? Check, and then read along 🙂

In your case, it seems the syncing stopped on every device with iCloud. So when you add a contact on your iPhone, or your Mac, they don't sync or add to iCloud, and you have new contacts that are not in it.

Check this Apple support page, where you can find steps to solve Contact issues with iCloud.com, iOS devices, and your Mac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3998

Notes:

1) In your Mac, don't forget to backup your Address Book using the vCard option. Save the resulting vCard file safe, just in case.

2) In System Preferences -> iCloud, when deselecting "Contacts", it will ask if you want to delete/save a copy of them in your Mac, say yes. It would take a while, depending on the size of your Address Book.

3) After all those steps, make sure you have selected "iCloud" as your default account in Address Book.

Hope it helps.

rolando

on iOS 5.1

I have not added contacts to phone.

Started with empty address book,

Setup iCloud account for address book,

Imported vCards from outlook,

At this point iCloud only showed around 183 of the 258 contacts from osx.

Configured iphone to use iCloud for address book (no other accounts)

Iphone shows 213 contacts.....

I would expect iPhone to show 183 as that is all that is in iCloud (no idea where the others are)

Going to wipe everything and start again.

Ok started again.

On OSX 10.7.3 I have 256 contacts

On iPhone 5.1 I now have 256 contacts 🙂

On iCloud web site I now have 195 contacts 😕

I get that it might not show some contacts that it has an issue with but why does it then sync them back down to iPhone?

Cheers,

Steven

OK, all working now.

The last 61 contacts that were mising from the web hand to be removed and added as a new contact, it must have had some info from Outlook that was not displayed.

I now have full sync between everything 🙂

Cheers

I have the solution for Mac users!! I have a feeling that for Windows users it may be similar logic. This took me a few days to figure out but wanted to share.

Here's something important to know about Address Book for Mac OS Lion users who also use iCloud. There are TWO different address books. There is a local hard drive copy called "On My Mac" and there's one called iCloud. If you're saving contacts or making changes to your "On My Mac" Address Book it will not synch.

Here's what I did.

1. On your iOS device (iPad, iPhone, etc.) go to Settings > iCloud and confirm that your Contacts is swiped ON.

2. On your Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud and confirm that Contacts is checked.

3. On your Mac, go to Address Book > Preferences then confirm that the iCloud account's "Enable this account" is checked.

4. In Address Book select View > Groups and on the left side of the Address Book program you should see "On My Mac > All Contacts" and below that "iCloud > All Contacts".

This is where you can confirm that all the contacts which have not synched to your iOS devices are located under "On My Mac > All Contacts."

5. The most efficient method I found to move my all my contacts from On My Mac to iCloud was to Command A all my contacts under On My Mac and drag them to iCloud. Address Book then identified duplicate contacts and asked me to confirm. You can also do bulk selections, i.e., use newer contact, etc.

Good luck!

I was not aware Windows users used iCloud. Fascinating.

I added a new contact in my Mac address book tonight. I tried everything I could think of to get the thing to sync with iCloud, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to show up on my iPhone or iPad. I started reading this thread but quickly gave up and headed out for dinner. I came home, still, the contact hadn't synced.

Then, I restarted my iPhone.

PRESTO! When I opened the address book app on my iPhone, the new contact was there. But here's the weird part: The new contact was now on my iPad too even though I hadn't restarted it.

Did restarting my iPhone trigger something in iCloud? I don't know... but I do know this: the contacts part of iCloud is a mess.

how do you export a vcard of entire address book. It only lets me do one entry at a time

First, select a contact on the "All Contacts" section. Then Command + A to select them all. Export to vCard.

If you want to export just a group, go to that group, and repeat from second step.

Hope it helps.

Spent an age trying to sort my sons phone synching with his MacBook via iCloud. Tried loads and for what it's worth the issue was on iCloud the preference was set to US and on the MacBook it was UK! Changed iCloud to UK and they appeared on his phone instantly.

Regards

Scott

My husband has been having this problem for months and keeps getting the run around for Apple. Today was the final straw. He went to our local Appple store to try one more time to get it fixed they said it was an iCloud issue and gave my husband a 1-800 number to call for technical help. When he got home and called they told him that because his phone was a 3gs, they needed $29 before they would talk to him because his phone was out of warranty. It is barely a year old. It is b.s. Apple needs to stand behind their products better. I was about to upgrade our phones, but not now. It looks like someone else will get our business.

Apple, please figure out your issues and not give your customers a load of crap everytime we talk to you. Make iClous sync properly and work out your battery issues.

The problem that I had was a similar one where I would manually add a contact on my iPhone, but it would not sync with iCloud. Fortunately there is a rether straight-forward explanation and an easy solution to the

iCloud contacts not syncing issue.

The proglem is taht there are multiple locations where your iPhone contacts could exist

1. locally on your iPhone - if you created the contact from within the device

2. brough in from your email account to your iPhone via Exchange

3. brought in from iCloud

This obscures rules dictating the location to where a certan new contact entry/contact data should be synced. What is peculiar in case 3., is that the contact entries are not storred locally on the iPhone, though once can still access them from the iPhone even if there is no active connection on the device.

Thanks DanielSJ, this worked a treat and thanks for sharing 🙂