contacts/address book - is it possible to have multiple databases?

Question

contacts/address book - is it possible to have multiple databases?

is there a way one can have various databases of contacts in address book/contacts?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Nov 13, 2012 1:13 PM

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Answer 1

sberman

Level 10

263,829 points

Nov 13, 2012 1:22 PM in response to markfromalicante

Your posting indicates you are still running Lion (OS X 10.7). I don't know the Lion answer. But here's the answer for the current operating system, Mountain Lion, which is the discussion heading under which you posted your question.

This comes from Contact's help:

Manage your contacts

Contacts stores contact information for your family, friends, and colleagues. With Contacts, you can enter contact information once and have instant access to it from multiple apps, such as Mail, Calendar, Messages, and FaceTime.

Open Contacts

HideSet up your contact accounts

Set up all of your contact accounts (such as your workplace, iCloud, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo! accounts) in Mail, Contacts & Calendars preferences, and then manage all of your contacts in Contacts.

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Mail, Contacts & Calendars preferences.Open Mail, Contacts & Calendars preferences
Click an account type, enter your account information, and then follow the onscreen instructions.Make sure the apps you want to use with the account are selected.

If you have other types of contact accounts, repeat the steps to set up each account.

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Answer 2

Nov 13, 2012 1:29 PM in response to sberman

actually using 10.8.2 - error creeped in there :-)

it does NOT solve my problem. I need to use address book in a cmr program. Problem is tht over the years, address book / contacts grew and grew. and now slows down the cmr program.

So i want to start a new contacts file where I can put in information on the people I need in that context, without all the others being loaded ...

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Answer 3

sberman

Level 10

263,829 points

Nov 13, 2012 1:36 PM in response to markfromalicante

I don't know what "cmr" means, but I think it doesn't matter ...

Are you saying you want to delete all your contacts and basically start over? If so, I can help you.

Or might you be saying that you want to have several different contacts sources, and you would like to manage which one(s) are displayed? You might be able to do that through Contacts' Preferences.

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Answer 4

Nov 13, 2012 1:41 PM in response to sberman

client relation manager

I want another database, so that in principle I can toggle between databases. No, I don t want to lose all the contacts I have. I just siemply don t want them to be imported into other programs that make it slow down.

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Answer 5

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Nov 13, 2012 1:47 PM in response to markfromalicante

markfromalicante wrote:

client relation manager

I want another database, so that in principle I can toggle between databases. No, I don t want to lose all the contacts I have. I just siemply don t want them to be imported into other programs that make it slow down.

The answer to your question is no, Address Book uses 1 local database. You could make a seperate Mac user account but that may not be convenient for you.

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Answer 6

sberman

Level 10

263,829 points

Nov 13, 2012 1:50 PM in response to markfromalicante

Oh, CRM (not cmr) ... yes, I know what that is, thanks.

So I suspect you can achieve your objective by one of two ways. But whether either of these do what you need depends more on the importing you're looking to do than any feature of Contacts.

1. You can set up groups in contacts and have your CRM folks in a group.

2. You can set up accounts that interface with the Contacts program as described above.

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