iCloud Contacts NOT Syncing with MAC - FIX

I have this problem on my iMac but not on my MacBook and iPhone.

I found this solution which does not require deleting all the iCloud contacts and this solution can keep all the contact photos.

This is copy from:

Re: iCloud Contacts failing to sync after High Sierra

I have found a solution that works for me.

1. quit Contacts
2. open ~/Library/Containers and delete anything with addressbook in its name
3. open ~/Library/Application Support and delete anything with addressbook in its name
4. open ~/Library/Preferences and delete anything with addressbook in its name
5. open ~/Library/Caches and delete anything with addressbook in its name
6. opened System Preferences : iCloud and uncheck contacts
7. restart your mac
8. when it boots back up open System Preferences :iCloud and check contacts

a little spinner spins saying "setting up"

Once that's done then open Contacts and wait. I have around 5000 contacts so it took about 10 minutes to fully sync.

I found a much simpler fix. Make sure all of your contacts are in iCloud in a browser. That will be the authoritative source. You may have to import some if they are missing.

Go into iCloud Settings in your browser. At the bottom left under Advanced click Restore Contacts.

From the list, select the backup you want to restore. Click Restore on the right and follow any prompts.

This will reset all contacts across all of your devices. You can see in the screen shot above I did so at 6:59pm, at which time it created another archive before continuing (so you can go back if need-be).

This worked for me. My iMac retrieved all missing contacts. I added a new contact on the Mac and it instanlty appeared in my browser.

Also - the contact photos remained intact everywhere!

Hope this helps!

I've been plagued with this issue for a few months now. Apple techs had me do everything including reinstalling MacOS. Absolutely nothing worked. The OP's solution "worked" but it was not a permanent fix. As someone else mentioned, this only "catches up" whichever device was missing contacts or not syncing (iMac in my case). I also don't use facebook for my contact photos, so for about 6 weeks i've been slowly having to add my contact photos back (hey, at least I get to use new pics!).

Someone else in this thread linked to another forum that had a VERY simple solution and it looks like it has worked just fine.

Here are the steps:

1. close the contacts app
2. go to ~/Library/Application Support/
3. rename the AddressBook folder to something like AddressBook(old) just to be safe
4. open the contacts app
5. it will create a new AdressBook folder that syncs to icloud properly
6. if it's all dandy delete the renamed AddressBook folder

(credit to user nectarina for this solution!)

Highly suggest you try this solution before the OP's more extreme solution.

I believe you that it may be the best solution, but yours is a pretty extreme solution. I don't want to go through all that trouble if the problem will persist. (If I'll continue having new contacts added on my iPhone go to iCloud but not make it to my Mac.) Can anyone report if this solution fixed the problem permanently, or if all it did was successfully sync contacts up to the point the solution was executed?

So I ran into this problem yet again after I fixed it, and I may have narrowed down on the cause. This was my experience:

I was adding pictures to each contact on my Mac and everything seemed to be fine. Eventually after 4 or 5 contacts the photos weren't syncing. I went to my iPhone and started adding photos and the sync process was hit or miss. Eventually everything came to a screeching halt.

I only realized the contacts that had photos were corrupted once I deleted all of my contacts from iCloud. As I went through the export-->delete process, I left Contacts on my Mac open and watched as my contacts disappeared. Then suddenly the contacts that had photos added via my Mac suddenly reappeared both in Contacts and in my iCloud.com experience. I deleted the duplicate contacts from iCloud, and they disappeared from Contacts as well.

I reimported my contacts via iCloud again, and now everything seems to be fine, but I haven't been messing around with this too much.

My recommendation until further notice--go without pictures, or only add them via iCloud.com or iPhone.

THANK YOU from Brazil!

During the process, I just found out a corrupted contact (May be the cause of the sync failure?). I had more than 2000 contacts. When I dropped the Vcard on contacts, it just added the first 95 contacts. I deleted the contact #96, and restarted the whole process. It works perfectly! And the pictures I had to remove the Facebook account from the Internet Accounts on System Preferences and added it again. In a few minutes the pictures started to pop up on contacts! Just missed the pictures that I added manually. All contacts are syncing in my 3 computers, iPhones and iPads!

Yes!! I have the same question. It's very frustrating when I add a contact on my mac and it doesn't appear in my iCloud account, thus not appear on my phone. I missed a meeting today because of this issue. It's not worth doing this entire process every time you add a contact. You'd think Apple would have solved such a basic function, like syncing contacts by now.

BTW - currently running iOS 11.2.6 on the iPhone X / High Sierra 10.13.3 on Macbook Pro.

Your fix worked pretty much to the letter (running 10.13.3 these days).

Thanks a bunch for posting. Two fat thumbs up from here!

Still, it is a pretty ugly fix: Backup, delete, and restore. :-j

I am not fussing at you, just saying that it ought to be below Apple standards not to remedy this...like yesterday. :-\

AFAICT sync works _from_ iCloud _to_ your devices, not the other way around. As long as your contacts are created in your iCloud account you're good. If you have more than one account, you should be presented with an option to select a default account. Setting that to iCloud will cause new contacts to be created in your iCloud account and sync to your devices. :-j

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was at my wit’s end with this!

Note: the first time I tried this didn’t work. I needed to have all three of my Macs running (so I had to drive to the office at church on my day off in the snow); I also had to manually delete one contact that stayed on my iPhone after I deleted them all in iCloud. Then, it worked. This may help someone else who syncs many devices.

It had been months with no help from Apple. I was thisclose to losing my mind.

I agree--this is severe. I've been going without images for my contacts, and I find it pretty annoying. Hopefully Apple is paying attention to this thread, because I'd really like to start using pictures for each contact again.

I can't believe to fix this important issue one needs use a trick. Why doesn't Apple implement this important issue in the next IOS Update? I can't do this trick with icloud.com each time as i change/add contacts in my Mac.

I think I've found that the answer is right under our nose. When I created the address book on my Mac and it asked me where I wanted my Contacts to be kept and I checked On My Mac. Seems really logical that that is where you want them to stay - locally. And then I assumed they would then sync with my iCloud account just like Calendar and other features. All of these other fixes just didn't seem right to me. Sure they work, but only short term. So I took a chance and went into Contacts settings on my Mac and checked iCloud as the location I wanted to store my contacts. In a few minutes every contact was everywhere, on all my devices. No copying, pasting, backing up, etc., etc. So far it's working. Even pictures of contacts.

It’s good that fixed your issue—but the discussion on this thread involves an issue in which the High Sierra update broke iCloud contacting syncing from iCloud to the Mac.

What many of us experienced after the High Sierra update is that contacts created or edited on an iPhone would populate to iCloud but not to a Mac running High Sierra; contacts created or edited on iCloud would populate to an iPhone, but not to a Mac (or several Macs) on the same account as they are intended. Contacts created or edited on the Mac would fail to populate or change on iCloud or users’ iPhones.

It was incredibly frustrating. The last ditch fix detailed by the original poster fixed this issue for me (though I lost groups and photos as I knew I would). My contacts once again sync across all devices as they should.

Apple should have fixed this.

This fix does work. But as some comments point out, photos of contacts will disappear. I think photos in contacts may be causing the problem. I followed this fix and had contacts syncing from my MacBook to the iCloud. Then I added a few of the photos I had lost and syncing to iCloud broke again. I've just redone the fix suggested, kept photos out of my contacts, and everything is still syncing. So I'd suggest an addendum to this fix - follow the steps outlined, but don't include any photos with your contacts - ever.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has had a different experience.