Mavericks contact syncing and editing distribution lists

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Mavericks contact syncing and editing distribution lists

I have always synced contacts between my iMac, iPhone, and iPad via iTunes (the old-fashioned way, via USB!). I just caught on to the fact that contacts aren't syncing via iTunes anymore, so I figured I'd join the 21st century and switch to iCloud syncing. I took a back-up of the contacts on my iMac first, thank goodness. I don't want all of the contacts on my iMac to sync to the iPhone and iPad. I understand that groups in the "On My Mac" account will not sync. But when I added my iCloud account in Contacts preferences, the "On My Mac" account disappears from the contacts left pane, where all my groups are (I can still see it in the Accounts tab of Contacts preferences). I ended up restoring removing the iCloud account from Contacts preferences and restoring contacts from the backup.

How can I sync only selected contact groups from my iMac to my iPhone and iPad via iCloud? Also, during the short period that I had all my contacts in the "iCloud" account in contacts, there was no "Edit Distribution list" option in the contextual menu. After I removed the iCloud account from Contacts preferences and restored contacts from the backup, I can once again select the "edit distribution list" option.

Suggestions?

Faye

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Dec 18, 2013 7:46 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,668 points

Dec 18, 2013 7:57 PM in response to fstevens

Ok, this is a bit convoluted, but it is the only way I know to recover the On My Mac section.

Make an archive of your contacts just in case.

Open the AddressBook folder from the Application Support folder from your user Library.

You can triple-click the below line, right-click on it, and then choose Open from the Services submenu.

Or, you can copy it, go to Finder, cmd-opt-g, paste it in and click Go.

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

In there you'll see several files named AddressBook-v22.abcddb (-wal, -shm). Delete those and the Configuration.plist file.

Open the Sources folder in a new window or tab. Go into the subfolders until you find a folder with vCards in the metadata folder. Copy one of those vCards and paste it into the Metadata folder that is directly inside the AddressBook folder. Rename it so you can find it easily, later.

Start Contacts. You should now see an On My Mac group with that one card in it. You won't be able to manipulate that card. Don't worry. You can now go back into the Metadata folder and delete it.

Drag your contacts from iCloud into your On My Mac account, then delete the iCloud contacts you just moved.

You should now be able to manipulate the On My Mac info.

If you end up still having problems with that vCard you copied, close Contacts, make sure the vCard is deleted from the Metadata folder, then delete the AddressBook-v22.abcddb and configuration files. Restart Contacts and the index will be rebuilt.

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Answer 2

fstevens Author

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Dec 19, 2013 9:04 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks, Barney-15E. I have contacts that are in multiple groups, some of which I would want to have sync through iCloud, but other groups I would want to have only in the On My Mac account groups. With the method (which I agree is convoluted!), can the same contact be in multiple groups, with some groups in the On My Mac account and other groups synced via iCloud? Or would I end up with two contact cards for an individual, one "On My Mac" and one in iCloud?

Faye

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

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112,668 points

Dec 19, 2013 4:34 PM in response to fstevens

If you have the same card in both accounts, it will be duplicated.

If it is in different Groups, but in same account, then it will not be duplicated.

Each account, iCloud or On My Mac, is an independent "rolodex," if you will. The cards in one may be identical to the cards in the other, but the two cards are separate entities. You can pull a card out of the iCloud rolodex, scribble some notes on it, then put it back in the iCloud account and the identical card in On My Mac will not be changed.

To copy a card from one to the other, just drag it into a group on that other account.

If you want to Move a card, you must drag it to the other, then go back and delete the one from the original account.

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Answer 4

fstevens Author

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Dec 19, 2013 5:33 PM in response to Barney-15E

Well, I certainly don't see how this is an improvement . . . One of my groups contains almost 600 contacts, former and current volunteers for an organization I belong to. Current volunteers (around 200 people) are also in an "active" group, and possibly also in other small groups, and I want those active contacts on my phone and iPad. I don't want or need the inactive folks' information with me at all times, but I want to keep record of it - sometimes they have specialized skills or interests that can be useful to the organization. If an active volunteer's contact info changes, I didn't want to have to change it in the "former and current" group in the On My Mac account as well as the "current" contacts in the iCloud account. I'll need to think about a different workflow.

Apple dropped the ball on this one, especially with the gyrations needed to even get an "On My Mac" account in Contacts once I've added an iCloud account. But thank you, Barney, for your assistance. I haven't tried your solution yet - I need to give some thought to a workflow that can work with what Apple hath wrought.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,668 points

Dec 19, 2013 5:52 PM in response to fstevens

If you have groups of people that you need to span accounts, create a Smart Group that can use info on the Card to determine inclusion, like company name, some keyword in the notes, etc. You can also use "is a member of" a group.

If you can't identify the group by a set of criteria, you can manually move them into a real group in each account. Then, create a Smart Group that is

"Contains cards which match any of the following conditions:

Card is a member of <Group in iCloud>

Card is a member of <Group On My Mac>

As noted, you can also add keywords to the Notes that you can search for with card contains ______

So, if you alread have information on the card indicating the person is a member of Group "group_name", then set up a smart group that have cards that contain "group_name"

Now, there is a slight issue with Smart Groups and Mail, but it can easily be worked around until they fix it.

Right now, you can't just type a Smart Group name into the address field of Mail like you can with other Group names, you have to use the Address Panel, select all the contacts in the Smart Group, then click the To (or cc, or bcc) button.

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Answer 6

fstevens Author

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Dec 19, 2013 6:22 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks again. I think I have a plan, although I'm not going to have time to implement it tonight. It's just frustrating that I have to make a change to a workflow that had worked for me for years. It may or may not be the best workflow, but it was working OK for me.

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Answer 7

fstevens Author

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Dec 23, 2013 8:28 PM in response to fstevens

I followed Barney's instructions - I have some clean-up to do as I have turned turned iCloud syncing on and off and back on again a few times apparently, over time, and had some contacts on the iCloud server in groups that I didn't want them in, and those synced back to my Mac. Nothing too bad, and I could deal with it. But I can't edit the distribution lists of the iCloud groups in the Contacts app on my iMac - there's no such option in the contextual menu. How are you supposed to determine which email address a message addressed to a group uses when a contact has multiple email addresses? And when I tried to send a message to an iCloud group, Mail doesn't give me the option to expand the group to, say, remove one member from that particular email message. Am I missing something?

I ended up removing contacts from iCloud syncing and restoring the Contacts backup so that Contacts are usable on my Mac. But with no apparent way to syn contacts to my iOS devices, I will have to manually update them every time I make a change in Contacts on my iMac. I am very frustrated with this situation.

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Answer 8

Barney-15E

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112,668 points

Dec 23, 2013 9:16 PM in response to fstevens

To edit which email is sent, use Edit Distribution List in the Edit Menu.

You click the email address for each person, and the selected one is bold.

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Answer 9

fstevens Author

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Dec 24, 2013 7:22 PM in response to Barney-15E

Once again, thanks, Barney. In the "On My Mac" groups, you can right-click a group name to get to Edit Distribution List (and this does still work), and I never used the Edit Distribution List in the Edit Menu. Duh! Everything looks good now. Happy Holidays!

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