Contacts "On My Mac" vs. "iCloud"

I had this same issue after updating my Mac to use iCloud for Contacts. I have thousands of contacts accumulated over two decades of digital use. As another user has stated, the easiest method is to Export all the cards from "On my Mac" to your desktop, then return to Contacts, select iCloud account, and import the desktop vCard file. The current process will give you the option to review all duplicates (yes!), and you can select Mac, iCloud, or Merge both cards for each contact, which you can do one-by-one or select a box to "apply for all cards." It was simple and easy. Thanks to all who had replied earlier!

Does anyone know how to get "All Contacts" into both "On My Mac" and "iCloud" without duplicates?

You can't. If the same contact exists in both locations, then it exists twice. If you are syncing all your contacts with iCloud, you don't need to have contacts "On my Mac". Only use "On my Mac" contacts for ones you don't want to sync.

Is there a way to have the default be to create the contact in iCloud?

Address Book > Preferences > General > Default account: iCloud

I have some contacts On-My-Mac that does't appear in iCloud and and I just find out an easy way to copy from one to another... send yourself the contact to your email account, and then open it up in the one you want to add it, that way you don't have to write all the info again... for example, I sent myself a contact from my mac to my email, and then in the iphone, I open up the email, and add it to my contact list, and then instantly, it's in all my mobile devices.

I hope this little trick can hel.p

luigiview there is an even easier way to do it. instead of sending each individual contact to ur email and then opening it in another device.

all you have to do is click on the group called "all on my mac" then "select all" contacts, right click and export to vCard. export this to the desktop. then, returning to the Address Book make ensure you click on the group called "all on icloud" then after doing this, go to the desktop and open the Vcard file you just created. this worked for me just fine.

also you are now free to remove all the contacts in the group called "all on my mac" so same thing again, just select all and then command delete. done. any questions or quires pm me

easier still... (in mountain lion anyway):

-'View' -> Groups

- click the group 'all on my mac', command A (select all)

- drag the onto 'all on icloud'

- follow prompts

- backup your contacts for safe measure (file, export..., archive)

- select all 'all on my mac' and delete

then you'll likely need to clean up some duplicates.

Cheers.

You will not see the preferences option

Address Book > Preferences > General > Default account: iCloud

unless you have two accounts enabled.

Chris.

You do realize that you are addressing a post that is 2 and a half years old?

Time Does Not Exist!

The thread is still helping people like me today. Thank you all for your input :-)

yes, time does not exist. This just helped me, too!

My software is up-to-date with Mountain Lion. Following your steps, but when I Select All, the highlighted group changes from All on My Mac to All Contacts. Your next step is to drag, but I don't see what to drag. Help?

Please start your own thread, this one is very old and is marked solved. You won't get much attention here.

(The specific poster you replied to was last here in Dec 2012, you may not get any answer at all)

March 2015, this comes up as the first entry when i Googled the issue. And this thread answered all my questions.

Thanks to all who contributed 🙂

This helped me too, many thanks