Issue importing .abbu backup and syncing to iCloud

I did not try this. It could be a good solution to saving groups as well as contacts - but messing about with accounts I thought something else would go wrong somewhere, which is why I did not try. I marked it as helpful because it might save all the group info

I did this and it worked to get my contacts back again after I had saved an archive (which was completely useless as a backup). As a result of other posts here I now understand why the abbu archive disappears a few seconds after you load it into contacts. Ok, I lost all my group info - but it was a price worth paying as I had more than 1200 contacts and not many in groups.

Contacts (or Address Book as it used to be called, and still is in the Mac filing system) seem to be deeply embedded and coupled with the Admin user account which seem to impact other software - including Mail, Dictionary, App Store, Safari and Messages. As suggested by others elsewhere I tried deleting parts of the Address Book folder inside the Library, but this seemed to make matter worse. Eventually I had to reinstall High Sierra.

I also found that an old copy of Xcode and a new (Nov 2017) installation of the anti-virus software Sophos (now removed) had corrupted the time stamp system. Sorry to ramble on, but finding all this out took two days, so I though it could possibly be useful to someone …

The reason is fairly straight forward. The date on the back up is older than what is on iCloud and once you restore these contacts they are immediately overwritten by iCloud (and disappear). When you import from the desktop, contacts treats it as a new contact and is therefore newer than iCloud and is therefore added to iCloud, not overwritten by it.

In future export to a vCard file.

Hello Csound,

I understand most part of the points discussed here, but not everything.

Like Jake described, there is the .abbu and the .vcf options. Isn’t that correct to say…
.abbu : is a backup of the entire database, including its structure (affiliation to groups)

while
.vcf : is a backup of vcards’ contents only, excluding affiliation to groups (and more?)

I have this issue for a couple of years now and it forces me to remain offline in terms of iCloud-contacts. I work with ADDRESSBOOK only locally from my MacBook Pro.

If I try to sync with iCloud, my local ADDRESSBOOK content gets erased and replaced by old inconsistent and not up to date entries coming from an unidentified source – even if iCloud was empty during this step.

If I upload a .vcf on iCloud and this .vcf comes from my desktop and contains all my contacts, I automatically loose all my contacts’ affiliations to groups (the affiliations to groups are correct on my local ADDRESSBOOK but get erased when arriving in iCloud. And if they get lost in iCloud, I loose them on my local ADRESSBOOK as soon as iCloud operates a synchronization with my MacBook Pro.

So, I think it would be a good idea if Apple would provide more clear information regarding the differences between an .abbu and a .vcf use in this synchronisation context.

a) Why is an .abbu’s weight higher than the weight of a comparable .vcf (all contacts)?

b) Why should a user use the lighter format (.vcf) instead of the complete one (.abbu) if the .vcf doesn’t contain all information he gathered using the applications (ADDRESSBOOK, iPhone Contacts, iCloud Contacts…).

c) What’s in an .abbu that is not in a .vcf?

d) How do I do NOT loose my groups’ affiliations when transfering data from my local ADDRESSBOOK over to iCloud?

Answering this kind of questions would dig deeper into the core of the subject than it’s done until yet from an official side. It would be nice to have these answers provided by Apple’s support or at least here.

🙂

Hello Winston Chirchill,

the newer entry wins, if I understand your point correctly

How do I influence iCloud, so it accepts my local ADDRESSBOOK content freshly saved on my desktop, whether as an .abbu or as a .vcf ?

My point here is, even if I empty my iCloud contacts before syncing with my MacBook Pro, iCloud wins and brings up old inconsistent contacts – I guess they are from a hidden backup-structure on Apple’s servers. But for me, they feel more like a bug as they permanently destroy my local ADDRESSBOOK.

Any hints would be much appreciated

🙂

Something like this worked for me:

. Disconnect from the network (pull cable or disconnect from wifi)

. Restore .abbu

. disable all network accounts inside contacts preferences (say icloud and google)

. create a dummy contact (this shoud get the 'on my mac' section to show in the sidebar)

. re-enable all relevent network accounts

. Copy contacts out of disapearing network accounts to 'on my mac' section

. Remove contacts from disappearing network accounts

. reconnect to network

. Copy contacts out of 'on my mac' to the various network accounts.

There is actually a solution that will require less overall work if you have a lot of groups. The basic strategy is to get the system to copy everything with groups intact to the On My Mac contacts, and then pull everything back into iCloud. That effectively updates all the timestamps and gets around iCloud not wanting to import old contacts.

1) DISCONNECT ALL NETWORK CONNECTIONS - ethernet, WiFi, everything.

2) Create a new account on your Mac, so you have a fresh Address Book with nothing in it. (Note that the new account shouldn't have any passwords in the keychain, so disconnecting from the network is just a safety precaution. If it asks for a password, hit 'cancel.' You don't want to connect to iCloud until the end.)

3a) If using a .abbu backup, copy the .abbu file that has your iCloud contacts to the new account. Double click the .abbu file to restore all the contacts.

3b) If you're attempting to restore from a file level backup solution, replace the ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder from your backup. Make sure the user id matches, and change it if necessary.

4) Open the Contacts application. You should see everything as it was at the time the backup was created. If you have other accounts besides iCloud that you're not having issues with, you can remove them using Contacts->Preferences...->Accounts. And if there is anything in On My Mac that you don't want pulled into iCloud, you should remove those entries now. If asked whether you want to keep contacts on your Mac, just delete them. To restore iCloud cleanly, you ONLY want iCloud contacts from this point forward.

5) At this point, if you want to, you can export to a .abbu file as a checkpoint so that if something goes wrong, you can start over without having to clean things up again.

6) Under Contacts -> Preferences... -> Accounts, delete the iCloud account. You will be asked if you want to delete contacts or keep them. Click KEEP CONTACTS! This makes a copy on the local system, under My Contacts, complete with the all of the group information intact.

7) Reconnect your Mac to the network if you disconnected it at step 1.

8) If you're going for a clean restore, and you're happy with exactly what is in the On My Mac contacts, log into iCloud through a web interface. Make sure all contacts AND groups have been deleted from iCloud. (If empty groups are in there, they'll still be there looking like duplicates. If you have a lot of groups, start by clicking the last one, hit delete, hit return, hit delete, hit return... repeat until they are gone.)

9) Add your iCloud account back to Contacts. It will attempt to merge all contacts. Since you only have a pristine copy in On My Mac with all of the group information, it will look exactly as it did at the time of the backup when you are done.

Now when you go back to your regular account, or your iPhone, etc.; your iCloud contacts should be restored after synchronizing.

I had 34 groups, and this saved me a lot of time over trying to work with .vcf files. It also ensures an exact restore, instead of accidental duplicates if you have contacts in multiple groups.

Mike P.

I'd been trying to syn my contacts with Facebook but I assume because of some privacy settings of my friends some wouldn't update. So before fiddling too much I exported all my contacts, unfortunately as .abbu. Out of frustration not being able to update the Facebook contacts I deleted the lot, knowing I had a back up. But now they wouldn't import from the .abbu for longer than half a second. So,

I switched off wifi

imported the .abbu file

exported all the contacts, this time, as vCard.

turned on wifi, again all my contacts disappeared. So

now I imported this time from the vCard.

Phew, all my contacts are now restored.