All my contacts are missing from my contacts application. How did that happen, and how can I get them back?

Question

All my contacts are missing from my contacts application. How did that happen, and how can I get them back?

Just discovered that there is no information in my "contacts" application. I'm running 10.10.4. Is this a know defect? I'd like to know how to get all my names and addresses (street addresses, phone numbers) back, and I'd like to know how this happened so I can shield myself from this happening again. The contacts still exist on my iPad. Is there a way to transfer them?

Time Capsule-OTHER, Model No: A1302

Posted on Jul 28, 2015 8:19 PM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,532 points

Jul 28, 2015 9:33 PM in response to christopher fromtehachapi

You or someone that uses your computer likely erases the contacts. To get them back is pretty simple, restore from your Time Machine backup.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Jul 29, 2015 4:12 PM in response to christopher fromtehachapi

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Application Support/Addressbook/Sources - you are looking for Metadata. Restore from your backup.

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Answer 3

Jul 31, 2015 10:57 AM in response to Eric Root

I was able to restore my contacts from my time machine back-up simply by bringing the empty contact window up on the screen, opening time machine, paging back through time until the contact window was populated, and then hitting the "restore" button on the bottom of the screen. I've had the time machine backup for a couple years and I've never had to use it. Carolyn Samit sent in the suggestion. Thanks Carolyn!

I still don't know what happened, but i suspect it has something to do with my use of the iCloud on this iMac and all our family cell phones. I checked the box to stop using the cloud version of the contacts and I think that erased the contacts on my computer. I'm constantly getting notifications that cloud storage is full, the remedy to which is to buy more storage. So it seems like deciding to use the cloud in the first place is like selling your soul to the devil!

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Answer 4

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,532 points

Jul 31, 2015 11:07 AM in response to christopher fromtehachapi

I'm happy restoring from TM solved the problem and my suggestion helped.

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