Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I used my Contacts without connecting to iCloud drive. No sync.
I upgraded my os to high Sierra, and lost all my contacts.
I managed to find a "hidden" directory that contained a "metadata" dir, in which I found .abcdp files
These .abcdp files are my contacts. With Finder I can read these .abcdp files. The problem is, I can not import them to my Contacts.
Could you please help me?
MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2)
The idea is to have AddressBook rebuild the database files it uses from the "abcdp" files that you have now (assuming they are the same as what was in the trash) or that you copy into the correct location, after removing the SQL databases that are located in the AddressBook folder - these are three files named AddressBook-v22.abcddb and AddressBook-v22.abcddb-shm and AddressBook-v22.abcddb-wal. For more info see the discussion from Barney-15E discussion at Fix corrupted Contacts database
Good luck...
If this does work, consider this a good time to start doing backups.
Where exactly did you "find" this hidden directory? Was it in /Users/home-folder/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/some-really-long-hex-name... (where home-folder is your username)?
That is where all your Contacts are supposed to be. So if that is where you "found" them, what exactly makes you say all of them are missing?
I agree with KiltedTime about using Time Machine to restore them, if you have a Time Machine backup? Did you have any problems during the update to High Sierra? Have you searched these discussions for others having problems with Contacts after upgrading to High Sierra?
Good luck...
thank you for your answer!
the /Users/home-folder/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/some-really-long-hex-name... didn't contain my contacts...
I search for others having the same problem, but didn't find anyone with my problem, but it realized that I had to search for a metadata dir
I searched in Finder with keyword "Metadata"
and under a long-hex name dir like FFFADCFDFSDFASDFASDF
I located files that should be addressbook files and the Metadata dir, with the .abcdp files in it.
I cannot open or copy paste the .abcdp files to Contacts...
I can only see the contents of the .abcdp files in Finder...
192:~ dimitrispap$ find . -print |grep abcdp |wc
find: ./Library/Saved Application State/com.adobe.flashplayer.installmanager.savedState: Permission denied
find: ./Library/Saved Application State/com.solidstatenetworks.host.savedState: Permission denied
6271 7509 737103
192:~ dimitrispap$ find . -print |grep abcdp| head -n 5
./.Trash/A3BC0937-3621-4D22-8239-2DFACC083FF0/Metadata/8BE4FC14-65AF-4AE5-850A-E F08786F314F:ABPerson.abcdp
./.Trash/A3BC0937-3621-4D22-8239-2DFACC083FF0/Metadata/8E3C13FD-88B7-4BEF-9FB1-0 B58CBF8B05B:ABPerson.abcdp
./.Trash/A3BC0937-3621-4D22-8239-2DFACC083FF0/Metadata/92D9463F-B5CA-49F8-9F51-3 C55A0CEA7B2:ABPerson.abcdp
./.Trash/A3BC0937-3621-4D22-8239-2DFACC083FF0/Metadata/93087801-B03F-4E34-8532-7 A8F6D31233D:ABPerson.abcdp
./.Trash/A3BC0937-3621-4D22-8239-2DFACC083FF0/Metadata/AAA137FD-4208-4AC4-8140-F 71155B15293:ABPerson.abcdp
192:~ dimitrispap$
I wish the above are useful, in order to help me
Thanks again!
What I have is: (copy paste it to a usb - in order not to lose it or not be able to find it again...)
a directory: DDD95502-6755-49DB-AFDE-7AFF55230907
which contains the following files: AddressBook-v22.abcddb, AddressBook-v22.abcddb-shm, AddressBook-v22.abcddb-wal, Configuration.plist, migration.log, OfflineDeletedItems.plist.lockfile, Synclockfile, SyncOperations.plist.lockfile
and two directories: Images, Metadata
Images directory is empty, but the Metadata dir contains many .abcdp files
I understand that these .abcdp files are actually my Contacts
because in Finder I can see in the Preview window the details of my contacts
Although in Finder these .abcdp files have the contacts icon, I can not open them with Contacts (probably old format?)
I assume that there must be a way to convert these files to a format that high-Sierra can read
It appears that your contacts got moved to the trash - do not empty your trash!!!!!
The problem now is that your AddressBook contacts are only part of what is needed ... there is a series of SQL databases that are based on the information in the "...abcdp" files, so the problem now becomes how to recreate those. Need to do a bit more research about how to try and recover/rebuild these before going any further, but it's very important that you not empty your trash and get rid of the contact files. No guarantee if this rebuild will work or be possible, but need to try a few experiments and will get back to you...
Well, after digging around a bit, it seems that what was in the trash was what was formerly in the ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources folder. Can you confirm that what is now in that folder and what is in your trash folder, IS NOT THE SAME THING? If it is then there is no point in proposing an experiment. Please look very closely - dates and times may be different but the important info to compare is file sizes I think and especially numbers of files/folders in each.
However if it is different, and I would guess substantially different, then let us know and I will make a suggestion, but no idea if it will work, because I can't reproduce your situation.
Good luck...
It would be much easier to just restore them from your time machine backup.
Open Contacts, Enter Time Machine, navigate back to where they still existed, and restore them.
So if you open a Terminal window and do the following what happens?
cd ~
find . -print | grep abcdp | wc
find . -print | grep abcdp | head -n 5
Good luck...
Should we assume that you do not have a backup?
Unfortunately, I don't have a backup...
Is there anything I can do to restore my Contacts?
If you were not syncing them to a cloud service and you have no backup, no.
how to import .abcdp files to contacts (mac os high Sierra)
