iCloud Contacts NOT Syncing with MAC - FIX

I have had the same problem, but didn't want to go to some of the extreme lengths suggested below. I have a mac mini, a MacBook pro and several iPads and iPhones. My mac mini is my most used machine, living on my desk, and it was from that that contacts were not syncing. A few users have commented on there being a possible issue with photos in contacts, so I thought I'd test that. I only had one contact with a photo assigned - my own. I deleted the 'my card', then recreated it without a photo. Hey presto! All worked fine. I then added the same photo via my iPhone to my contact, and all is still syncing and working - so there is I suspect some issue with older macs running the latest IOS that means adding photos to contacts causes a problem. Pretty simple fix, but an irritating bug that took a long time to resolve. I would suggest that anyone having this issue at least tries this fix before resorting to some of the other more drastic solutions suggested in this post.

Hi, why would you wanna export your contacts.

You need to deselect the iCloud for Contacts on your iPhone (don't remove them from there). Then they are saved only on your iPhone.

Then u delete the iCloud Contacts which and also remove them on your Mac.

Then you turn on iCloud for Contacts on your iPhone again and select 'Merge'.

Voila, they will appear on your iCloud and on your Mac again.

Sync works again.

I've already described this procedure in one of my posts.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with my setup or a general one: exporting all contacts as vCards from iCloud.com does NOT include contact pictures. So be careful there …

Had a similar issue and started reviewing these steps. After logging into iCloud.com on my Mac, and viewing the contacts, there was a Refresh option. Clicked it since a recent contact was not listed and wah-lah - the known missing contact appeared in the iCloud and on my iPhone.

I went through this process and it eventually worked but it was a bit messy.

I must have had a corrupted file somewhere because only a portion of the contacts would re-import. I was a bit panicky about the thought of losing several hundred contacts that I needed.

After numerous attempts at importing the various backup files I created, finally one worked, but only after I restored my phone from a backup version.

One thing I should add. When I deleted all the contacts on my Mac, I then checked iCloud.com and discovered two "rogue" contacts still up there - so, I deleted them manually, as suggested. It was the rogues that I believe caused the sync failure in the first place....Now, AOK as mentioned previously.

This worked for me. My iOS devices where syncing with iCloud. It was just the Mac OS one that was causing my problem. This was a quick, safe fix.

Point is, my mac mini wasn't syncing to iCloud, but all other devices were (about 7 others successfully). Once I removed the photo from my main contact it all started syncing again perfectly.

To me, the best fix was, inside Contact(MacOS), search and combine duplicate contacts.

after this, the sync process is working fine on MacOS.

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.

I have had similar issues and applied the fix recommended by ashr1uk. After completing this task my contacts in iCloud matched those on my iPhone and those on my iPad. However these contacts did not populate into Contacts on my iMac. I copied all contacts from iCloud to my iMac. I then created a new contact in my iCloud account, then on my iPad and then on my iPhone and each time the new contact populated across all devices, but not onto my iMac. I then created a new contact on my iMac, but this did not populate into my iCloud account, iPhone nor iPad. So to me this problem still exists - unless there has been a new fix which I can't find in the discussion forums.

worth to mention that all Contact pictures will be gone afterwards.

I was a little hesitant at first to delete anything, but I did and it WORKED! Many, Many Thanks!

Thanks Man,

It worked. All contacts came..

No Loss.

Beautiful! Thanks so much for posting your resolution to this problem. It worked perfectly for me.