I want my MacBook "On My Mac" contacts group back

If you enable iCloud synchronization of Contacts in the iCloud preference pane, all your contacts will be moved to iCloud and you'll no longer have an On My Mac category. If that's not what you want, do as follows.

First, if you haven't already done so, back up your iCloud contacts by selecting all of them and then choosing

File ▹ Export ▹ Export vCard...

from the Contacts menu bar. Save the vCard wherever you like. It contains all the selected contacts.

Uncheck the Contacts box in the iCloud preference pane. Confirm that you want to delete your iCloud contacts from the computer when prompted. They'll still be on iCloud.com and on your other synced devices (if any), as well as in the vCard you just created.

Add at least one placeholder contact, not necessarily a real one. From the Contacts menu bar, select

Contacts ▹ Preferences... ▹ Accounts

and click the plus-sign button at the bottom of the account list on the left. In the sheet that opens, select iCloud and enter your Apple ID credentials. Your iCloud contacts should reappear after a brief delay, and you should still have the On My Mac category. Any contacts in that category will not be synced with iCloud.

Credit for this idea to ASC member Larry Wasson.

Hello Larry,

You mentioned in the information that one should still have there "On My Mac" in the list on the left, nope, not me, could it be Apple changed this feature to not appear?

Thank You,

Chris

It worked fine for me (even though I forgot to create the dummy contact). Thanks for this trick!

I tried this, but it does not seem to work. I exported copy of all iCloud contacts to desktop. I turned off iCloud for Contacts. I imported the copy of all my contact card. "On My Mac" appeared in the sidebar with all of the contact cards listed. When I re-enabled iCloud for Contacts, "On My Mac" disappeared and only iCloud Contacts was in the side bar (with duplicate card). I tried this several time without success. Am I doing something wrong?

Carole

This doesn't work for me either; the "On My Mac" group does not show up for me, even after disabling all accounts and creating a dummy contact.