iCloud Contacts NOT Syncing with MAC - FIX

My advice is to not follow that solution unless you are prepared to rebuild any contact groups that you have. Until Apple comes up with a fix, use the contacts in your iOS devices and in iCloud where everything else seems to be synced properly.

Ed

I had this same problem and Apple Support advised me to take the same steps the OP proposed. It did, of course, cause the loss of all groups and photos, but I was willing to do it to get rid of the problem.

Unfortunately, after a few months, the problem is right back again.

I think one of the other posters may be onto something about photos causing the problem. I suspect that adding photos on the Mac rather than on the phone may be causing corruption of some contacts, but I can't be certain that's the problem. We do absolutely need a fix from Apple on this.

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?

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

I did this. I thought I had read all the comments and understood that the photos would be missing from my contacts. I did not see (until later) that all groups would be empty. That's a pretty major thing for me. If you can, you should modify the original post to indicate that this is a problem. Had I known, I could at least have printed out lists of contacts within groups. I can't think of any way to restore this.

Tom Kenney, this one threw me off for a minute as well. They are not in the main library, but in the user library, which is hidden. To find it, be in the finder, hold down the [Option] key while clicking on the "Go" menu, and select "Library", which will now show up in the list. Now you should be able to find all of the mentioned folders.

Hello all Mac and Other people with this Contact-Sync problem,

Which seems to be old fashion but CAN be a great help is to PRINT all the contacts and put them on a safe place...

One can compare which contacts didn't sync and which not. It is also fine to HAVE the Contacts 'for real'.

Thanks to all of you!

Pansel

Just in case this ever happens to you or anyone else ever again, I used the solution posted here and it worked perfectly within seconds:

Re: iCloud contacts do not sync on macOS Sierra

You will lose all your groups and your contact photos.

It really works. Solved my mac sync problem.

...and I kept the photos.

Thanks Brian.

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.

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. :-\

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.

Like many, I've spent hours on the phone with Senior support, to no avail. I have tried many versions of what all of you have tried, and it still doesn't work. My MB Air works perfectly, syncing with iCloud and the iOS devices, but the iMac is out in the cold, and it doesn't sync with anything. Contacts added on any device other than the iMac are synced, and some have pics.

I still have one senior support that is really trying to find a solution to this; let's hope it happens!