Option-drag contacts to Finder no longer works in Mavericks

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Level 1

4 points

Option-drag contacts to Finder no longer works in Mavericks

In all versions of Contacts and Address Book you could select multiple contacts, hold down the option key, then click and drag them into a folder, which would result in a separate vCard for each contact. If you did not hold down Option prior to dragging, all contacts were combined into a single vCard (eg: John Smith and 10 others.vcf).

I just installed Mavericks and now the option-drag method no longer works. As I drag the contacts to a folder everything looks like it is working as normal, except that when I drop, nothing shows up in the finder, the folder remains empty. If I don't hold down the option key, it works as normal and a single vCard is created for multiple contacts. Dragging one at a time also still works.

I would like to know if others are experiencing this as well. I assume this must be a bug, as without this ability the only way to export multiple separate vCards (that I know of) would be to drag them one at a time.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 17, 2014 12:54 PM

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Answer 1

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 21, 2014 7:42 PM in response to MacVal

Never did figure this out...

Anyone know how to export multiple individual vCards (bsides one at a time)?

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Answer 2

Joe M

Level 1

90 points

Feb 22, 2014 10:42 AM in response to MacVal

Try selecting 2 or 3 cards and dragging them to the desktop or to a folder without holding down the Optioin Key. It appears as there is only 1 vcf card saved but that the single card contains the 2 or 3 cards that you placed there. You can verify this by double clicking on the card and when it comes time to import back into Contacts, Review Duplicates and you will see they are all there. If you want to see each card individually, then drag and drop them one at a time, again, without holding down the Option Key.

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Answer 3

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 22, 2014 3:46 PM in response to Joe M

If you want to see each card individually, then drag and drop them one at a time, again, without holding down the Option Key.

Thanks, but I was looking to end up with individual cards, so dragging one at a time is not practical when there are hundreds of contacts.

I guess the question is whether there is a bug in Contacts that has broken the option-drag method, or if it's a problem with my system. Can anyone confirm whether or not option-drag works (produces individual contacts)?

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Answer 4

Joe Bailey

Level 6

12,227 points

Feb 22, 2014 4:31 PM in response to MacVal

Dragging and dropping a group entry from Contacts still works and no option-drag is required. Just click on the Group name and drag and drop wherever you want. It will only be a single vCard file but that file contains the information from all of the entries in the group. If you import that vCard into Contacts, it will expand into individual cards for each member of the group. At least that still works on my Macs running Mavericks.

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Answer 5

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 22, 2014 5:51 PM in response to Joe Bailey

I am aware of all that. That isn't what I asked.

I am simply trying to find out if option-drag to produce individual contacts (the way it has been forever) still works for others.

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Answer 6

Joe Bailey

Level 6

12,227 points

Feb 23, 2014 2:19 PM in response to MacVal

It still works for me the way it always has.

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Answer 7

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 23, 2014 2:39 PM in response to Joe Bailey

Joe Bailey wrote:

It still works for me the way it always has.

Thanks. That's interesting. I just did a fresh install of Mavericks, so I thought it must be a bug with Contacts, but maybe there's a problem with my machine. I'd be interested to find out if others have the same issue or if I'm the only one.

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Answer 8

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 25, 2014 1:42 PM in response to MacVal

I just found something interesting.

An Apple support document entitled "Contacts: Export and import your contacts" (http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11586) from August of 2012 contains the following:

Drag multiple contacts or a group to the desktop.One vCard file is created for all of the contacts. However, some apps might not be able to read vCard files with multiple contacts. To create a file for each contact, hold down the Option key while dragging the contacts or the group.

But in a newer article entitled "Contacts (Mavericks): Export and import contacts" (http://support.apple.com/kb/PH15080) the above line has been deleted.

Sounds to me like Apple has removed this option. If so, I can't imaging why.

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Answer 9

RAM

Level 2

198 points

Feb 25, 2014 5:15 PM in response to MacVal

It's frustrating when Apple removes a feature you're used to using... But when they close a door.... 😀

Do the following:

1) Open the Contacts Application and select all the contacts you want to export

2) Open the Automator application and create a New Workflow

3) Select "Contacts" from the Library panel at the left

4) Drag the action "Get Selected Contact Items" from the middle panel and select "Get Selected PEOPLE" from the drop-down menu.

5) Drag the action "Export vCards" from the middle panel and select "Export INDIVIDUAL VCARDS" from the first drop-down menu and select a destination FOLDER from the second drop-down menu. Just create a new folder on your Desktop and select it, you don't want to save directly on the Desktop as this will put all your individual vcards there.

6) Run the workflow by hitting the PLAY button at the top-right of the window.

Optionally, you can save the workflow for future use, but the best practice would be to use the Get Selected Items and not the Get Specified Items, as the later would only export the contacts you already have there and not the new ones, I believe.

In any case, there's the window! 😎

Rick.

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Answer 10

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 25, 2014 8:06 PM in response to RAM

Nice one RAM! I never thought to check out Automator. I will definitley give that a go, it should do the trick.

And yes, it is indeed frustrating when these little features go missing.

Cheers.

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Answer 11

Apples

Level 1

1 points

Apr 7, 2014 5:02 PM in response to MacVal

I am encountering the same problem... did you ever figure out how to get back the option export individual vcards back?

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Answer 12

MacVal Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 7, 2014 8:14 PM in response to Apples

Apples wrote:

I am encountering the same problem... did you ever figure out how to get back the option export individual vcards back?

Unfortunately no. As mentioned in the post above (the post regarding the Apple support documents I found) it would seem that that the feature was removed.

I can't imagine why something so simple would be removed on purpose though. It leaves Contacts without the ability to export separat vCards (except one at a time of course, but that's kinda pointless). I'd suggest leaving feedback about this. http://www.apple.com/feedback/

However, thanks to a great suggestion above, I made a simple little Automator workflow that creates a new folder, then exports all my contacts as separate vCards into that new folder.

PS... In the "Find Contacts" step I didn't see a way of telling it to just export all the contacts. It forces you to create a specific set of parameters, so in order to grab them all I told it to export all contacts created in the last 100 years.

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Answer 13

RAM

Level 2

198 points

Apr 8, 2014 7:02 AM in response to MacVal

so in order to grab them all I told it to export all contacts created in the last 100 years.

Very nice! 😎

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Answer 14

Jul 9, 2014 7:44 AM in response to RAM

I tried the Automator way of doing this but it's not working. I've set up the workflow properly but it's not exporting all the contacts. I have 82 contacts selected. The "Get Selected People" portion of the workflow works fine... it shows that it returned 82 results. However, the "Export vCards" only exports 18 of the 82 selected vCards.

Why would this happen and how do I fix it?

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