How do I get rid of the "All on My Mac" group in Address Book?. How do I get rid of the "On My Mac" account in Address Book?

Question

Level 1

5 points

How do I get rid of the "All on My Mac" group in Address Book?. How do I get rid of the "On My Mac" account in Address Book?

I have addresses on iCloud and they seeem to be synching correctly with my iMac and iPhone. However, I have several hundred duplicated entries in Address Book, some of them duplicated 4 times. If I select the iCloud group, there are no duplicates. The duplicates are in the "All on My Mac" group. When I manually remove the duplicates, they come back.

In Address Book>Preferences>Accounts I have an iCloud account and an "On My Mac" account. I cannot get rid of the "On My Mac" account. There is a "+" and a "-" at the bottom of the column, but if I selelct the "On My Mac" account the "-" is grayed out and if I click it anyway, nothing happens. If I select the iCloud account I am allowed to delete it.

Similarly, I can't get rid of the "All on My Mac" group on the groups page. If I select "All on My Mac" and go to edit, "Delete Group" is grayed out.

Any suggestions?

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.2), iPhone 4

Posted on Jan 22, 2012 1:54 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jun 27, 2017 7:31 AM in response to Rockies

Easier way. Got to preferences - accounts - under iCloud uncheck the contacts ones for just a few sec. Open up contacts and you will see there is nothing there. Then close contacts re check the contacts under iCloud in the accounts preferences. Open contacts back up you will see your contacts there with "All on my Mac" group removed.

It wasn't working the way it was described in an earlier post so i tried this way and it worked.

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Answer 2

Jun 27, 2017 7:46 AM in response to Lanny

yah but at least i am posting another update to it which might be easier. Plus people are more likely to look at a newer listing post if they come across the same problem like I had.. But thanks, just adding to the discussion.

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Answer 3

bjurry

Level 1

4 points

Aug 8, 2017 4:26 PM in response to finleyproduction

Doesn't work this way for me... Issue I have is that any new contacts I create on MacBook, iPad or iPhone, will sync with iCloud (and each other). But my existing contacts however on my iPhone/iPad (either of which is my source), do not sync to iCloud (and hence not to MacBook).

Strangely, my "all on Mac" has some (duplicate) content, but don't know where it gets it from... as the iCloud contacts are empty...

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Answer 4

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,246 points

Jan 22, 2012 2:07 PM in response to Rockies

You can't delete the All On My Mac as it is an automatic group to display all of the contacts that are stored "On My Mac." You can delete all of the contacts that are in the ON MY MAC section by selecting All ON My Mac and then selecting all contacts. Press delete and approve the deletion. Then, select each group under ON My Mac and delete those individually.

Then, Make sure iCloud is set as the default account in the General Address Book Preferences.

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