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Can't sync iCloud Contacts to iPhone 3G Contacts using iTunes 11

I've got an old iPhone 3G and no data plan, just prepaid phone service, and that's been OK. But then I upgraded to Mavericks, and now I'm in a fix. Since the Mavericks version of iTunes won't sync Contacts to an iPhone any more, and my iPhone is too old to connect with iCloud, I've lost the ability to easily update my phone's address book. I probably need to get a more current iPhone, but in the meantime, I'm trying to come up with a workaround.


My wife's MacBook Pro (W-MBP) still runs Mountain Lion, so I thought I could sync my Contacts to her Contacts using iCloud, and then sync my iPhone to her updated Contacts using her iTunes and a USB cable, just like I had been accustomed to doing on my computer (My-MBP) before I upgraded.


But the weird thing is that her iTunes will only sync to my iPhone using her local copy of the Contacts database (DB), not with the more up-to-date iCloud DB. In fact, her local copy of the Contacts DB refuses to sync up with the iCloud's DB.


So I thought I'd use sneakernet. I exported my Contacts DB as a Contacts archive, and loaded it onto a thumb drive. Then I plugged the thumb drive into W-MBP and manually imported it into her Contacts. Far from updating her local DB, it actually seems to have erased it... at least, no data shows up in the On My Mac part of the Contacts sidebar, although when I try to export her Contacts, the archive file is many megabytes in size.


The upshot is that my attempts to update my iPhone's address book have ended up deleting all its entries.


So here in brief is the situation on W-MBP:


Her Contacts can sync to iCloud and update the DB to reflect changes I've made in my Contacts (on My-MBP). But her iTunes can only access her local DB, which won't relate to iCloud at all - nor to my attempts to import my Contacts archive. So when iTunes updates my iPhone, it does so from a local DB which is now empty.


Before you ask, yes, I'm aware of the prefs in Contacts, enabling under Accounts and selecting the default account in General. I'm also aware of the iCloud control panel in Systems Prefs. I've been poking around all these settings and trying different things, but so far to no avail.


Help?


Ken

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Nov 21, 2013 6:20 PM

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Can't sync iCloud Contacts to iPhone 3G Contacts using iTunes 11

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