contacts disappeared in Sierra upgrade

Are you trying to import from Snow Leopard Contacts? Did you make a backup of your Snow Leopard files before upgrading to Sierra?

If you can still open the Address Book.app in Snow Leopard, use File > Export > Address Book Archive... to save your data as .abbu file.

This saves your data as .abbu file. You can import this fine into Contact.app in Sierra.

If you cannot open the Address Book.app in Snow Leopard, but you have your Snow Leopard Library files, you can copy over the folder "AddressBook" from the User's Library > Application Support folders that contains the data. Place this on your Desktop. We will discuss how to import into Contacts in Sierra.

Hey Diane... I found a post from another user saying to open the Contacts app on my Sierra HD and then click the Time Machine icon... it automatically opened my missing contacts on the backup drive! I hit the Restore button and wa-la, I have my contacts back. So easy... unfortunate it was so hard to locate a user prescribing this method but all is well that ends well.

This sounds like a permissions error. Check to see if the folder is Read Only. Do a Get Info on the AddressBook folder in your User's Library/Application Support and the AddressBook-v22.abcddb file.

You can click on the Lock and set permissions to Read & Write then under the gear, select "Apply to enclosed items..."

It's possible you need to reset permission for your Home folder. See

Reset permissions

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538

Testing in a new User will quickly tell you if the problem is system wide or if it's your User's folder that contains the problem.

You can use the Guest User or create a new User for testing.

Place the contact files in the Shared folder for access when testing. Data in the Shared folder can be accessed by another User. When you "Switch Users", you can access the files in the shared folder.

Your Hard Drive/Users/Shared

After you log into the new test User, drag from Shared (it actually copies and place on the Desktop for testing. Remember to drag it back from Shared when complete testing.

CREATE A NEW USER

Go to System Preferences --> Create a New User in Users & Groups.

Switch to the New User by logging out/in or use Fast User Switching.

You can skip logging in with an Apple ID unless you need to test iCloud apps. Hit continue then skip.

[Note: you might want to enable your iCloud contacts if you need to put the data back on the cloud so it will be synced back in your regular User.]

Only default Apple apps will be in the Dock in the new User. Go to Applications to open other apps you might want to test.

Do you still see the issue in the new User?

If yes, then the problem is with your base files.

If no, then the problem is in your User's folder.

More Info:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

Now I know what an Exchange Account is, and having tried the first URL link nothing would load. The second URL website loaded and just seems to be another way of using the internet.

My problem was all to do with the actual Contents App. where they were all there but not sorted into the individual Groups. Eventually I re-grouped them all again so they're now back in place. Strange thing is that I've now got everything repeated THREE OR MORE times!

I'm not happy about deleting the repeats in case they all disappear!

Thank you, dianeoforegon,

I like your thinking on permissions!

I followed each specific step in your post.

Permissions seemed correct.

Then followed the steps from <https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538>

to reset permission for my Home folder.

All went well.

Contacts still will not retain the contacts and groups from the imported abbu file, once the app is quit and re-opened they are 100% gone.

Eric Root, thanks for your futher suggestion.

I have not tried this yet, but will.

Thanks. I appreciate the great ideas!

I am confident one will work. Has to, right??

Since you have your contacts in iCloud, you need to reset contacts.

Quit Contacts.app

Go to User’s Library.

Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

Make a backup copy of this entire "AddressBook" folder. (in case things goes wrong.

Delete the file AddressBook-v22.abcddb

Restart Contacts app (on Mac) and this file will be repopulated.

If you still have problems, you can try removing these files as Eric describes earlier in this discussion.

Re: contacts disappeared in Sierra upgrade

Copy the following Path and paste it into Go To Folder in the Finder (Go menu).

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

Click Go

When the AddressBook folder opens, find these three files and delete them.

• addressbook-v22.abcddb
• addressbook-v22.abcddb-shm
• addressbook-v22.abcddb-wal

Open Contacts and see if your contacts are re-populated.

On the Last Upgrade from Apple, my contacts on my iMac went missing. I DO NOT use the iCloud, as I do not trust it at all. I DO always sync my iPhone with my iMac. All of my Contacts were fine on both my iPhone and iMac, before the recent update. After the update, my contacts stayed okay on my iPhone, but they disappeared from my iMac. In an attempt to solve my problem, I synced my iPhone with my iMac, but that did not fix my problem. iMac Contacts were still gone. I prepared to sync again, via iTunes. In iTunes, on my entry-Library screen, I clicked on the iPhone icon, in the upper left of the screen. "Summary" was now highlighted. I clicked on "Info". At this location my Contacts and Calendars were now Turned Off. So I selected Sync Contacts and Sync Calendars. I then clicked on "Sync" to sync my iPhone with my iMac. It moved all of my Contacts back to my iMac. PROBLEM SOLVED !! For some reason, the iMac update or an iPhone update changed these settings and made my iMac Contacts disappear. They are now back and doing fine.

Has anyone found a solution to this? All of my 3500+contacts disappeared immediately after the upgrade. I guess it wasn't much of an upgrade!ha! Anywho-I was able to retrieve half by downloading them from the cloud-however the cloud contacts are very old because I had not backed them up to there in quite a while. So-I would be extatic to hear if someone, anyone has a solution. Like the original poster-all of my contacts are for work, they all are just completely gone-and before anyone asks. Yes I did back up my system however my back up drive is no longer compatible-because it is not compatible with Sierra! Haha how's THAT for helpful! Something which I found out after I upgraded. Sigh. I hate upgrading. I always lose data-Always. Thanks! G

I didn't back up my files before upgrading, and wouldn't have thought to export the contacts even if I had. I did find an ancient contacts file with abbu as part of its name that had been bzip-ed, but it was not helpful. I use Time Machine, So in principle everything should be there.

The problem seems to be that stuff got moved to iCloud without my understanding that's where it was. I try very hard not to use iCloud because I like to know where my data live, but occasionally one or another of my devices somehow connects. My solution was to turn on iCloud, restore my contacts, archive them locally and turn iCloud back off. Hope I didn't lose something else in the process.

PS

To the person who edited my "rant", know I have been a proponent and owner of many Apple products since 1984, and am a stockholder. When Apple aggravates me so much I want to return to my 800k Mac Plus, I think you would want to know that.

Always backup your drive BEFORE upgrading the operating system (OS X is now called macOS)

Big jumps like Snow Leopard to Sierra is huge but even going from El Capitan 10.11.6 to Sierra 10.12.x you need a clone backup. With a clone you can boot back into the old system in cases like this, where the upgrade failed and you need to go back and export your data.

If you don't have a clone backup it's time to start. Just like a seat belt and an air bag protect you in different ways when driving, you need both Time Machine and a clone for full protection.

Create a Clone backup:

A clone is an exact bootable copy of your internal drive. Unlike standard copying of all files to another drive, the clone software copies hidden files along with other in-use files that are not available when you copy over files to another drive.

Time Machine is not bootable. You could only restore from Time Machine

Software used to Clone:

SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/

CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

Over the past 20 years I've always been able to resolve any Mac issues I have had by reading comments & reviews from the online forums. Until now, I have never had to reach out in complete "I don't know what to try next" mode. Maybe you can help Diane. You seem to know what up. I can't locate a solution after spending hours and hours searching. Like the original poster, I just upgraded my operating system... 10.8 (Mountain Lion) to 10.12 (Sierra)... and I lost all my contacts. I didn't know to export an AddressBook ABBU file before upgrading or to make a bootable "clone" backup. I did create a Time Machine backup just before upgrading but cannot locate a folder named AddressBook in the location you specified above. Furthermore, and this is crazy, using the Search Filename option on the backup drive yields no files or folders containing the work "Address"... which is simply not true because I located a folder with the name "Address Book Plug-Ins" on the backup drive. I then tried searching for other filenames I know exist on the Time Machine backup drive... searching does not work on the backup drive... not even when I follow the directions on clicking the Time Machine icon in the menu bar > then click Enter Time Machine. Search Filename works fine on my harddrive... just not on the Time Machine backup drive. :-( And I'm no closer to a solution to retrieve my Address Book contacts. Any ideas?

Hi xoxosage,

I've got this problem and I just can't find a way to get everything as it was, all I get in Time Machine is 'ALL Contacts' OR one or the other of my 'Groups'. But I can't get them all together with my groups.

Can you advise me please?

makey.

Hi alex-h1, I also have this problem.

I've made a smaller leap, from OSX Mountain Lion (I think it was 10.8.5) to Sierra 10.12.4 and I just can't get round the 'Missing Contacts' problem.

How do I find this .abbu file? I followed the File>Import but I don't know where to look for the 'archive file' for .abbu and Spotlight wasn't any help!

Would you please help?

Thank you,

makey.