There are no contacts in the "on my mac" area. They are all in iCloud.
So how do I get rid of "on my mac" (in High Sierra) Contacts sidebar? I don't have it on my iMac but I do on my MacAir... both running H.S.
iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)
Hey Kappy. I'm running latest High Sierra. Thanks for the pix but on my iMac there is no "On My Mac" in Contacts.
Why is that? (I do have it on my old MacAir.) I guess is is supposed to be there? Who knew? I never saw it on this iMac... which is only about 2 years old... with SSD).
Very interesting in that I don't have the dropdown for default account on the iMac but I do on the MacAir... both running same version of Contacts. Hmmm. And the MacAir only has ONE account (iCloud CardDav) in Accounts just like the iMac.
Is there a way to re-install Contacts without doing a full Macos install?
Kappy, thank you. I have a somewhat sophisticated system for backing up my contacts to both vCard and native format (I forget the name.) to my server and other places.
The "On My Mac" section in Contacts (on MacAir) is empty so I figured I'd get rid of the label. How come it is not on my iMac but is on my MacAir? I must have created it one time when I signed out of iCloud?
Assuming I would want to have an "On My Mac" backup on my iMac, how would it get created?
Thanks.
I don't rightly know. I did not create it on mine. It has always been there as I remember. Open preferences in Contacts > General. At the bottom do you have a drop-down menu for default with On My Mac listed as an option? Maybe you have to Import them?
I did some checking. I talked to two other people who have same hardware and software as I do (i.e. newer iMac, SSD, 10.13.3) and neither of them have an "On My Mac" in their contacts either. So my guess is that you have to create it by signing out of iCloud like you mentioned and as I remember you get asked if you want to save the contacts to your local machine... and I remember doing that on the MacAir a few months ago.
What I don't understand is why an "on my mac" is needed since the contacts that are listed as being in iCloud in Contacts are also resident on my local hard drive. If you booted up without wi-fi and had no access to the net, the Contacts are still there. True, if you add one or made a change they would 'take' (on that local machine) but would not sync to iCloud or other devices. You would not lose them. So maybe Apple has made some changes to the program such that an 'on my mac' is not needed unless you quit iCloud ... and I'm not even sure why it asks you to 'keep on this iMac' when you do. My guess is that it is a legacy process that Apple has simply not 'cleaned up.' I think many will agree that Apple's software is not nearly as polished as it used to be when they took two years between OS versions. I wish they would go back to that and give us software that did not require a large update every 30 to 60 days.
Had the same problem on my husband's MacBook Air running High Sierra. I think when I set it up, I added his contacts from his Mac before using iCloud as a backup. By doing this it had his contact card. I selected all the contacts from the view on My Mac & deleted them. "On My Mac" did not go away until I deleted his personal contact card. Maybe I could have deleted it by just deleting his card from the On My Mac contacts. Problem solved.
See this screen shot , select the card , right click on any card and delete it under on my Mac section .
You don't. You should make a copy of all your contacts On your Mac as a backup in case they disappear from the cloud. That way they will also be backed up whenever you back up your computer.
You can do a re-install without erasing the drive, but otherwise, you cannot just reinstall one app. I don't know if reinstalling would help.
Well I'm not going to reinstall just for one program. I'll do some research and see why I don't have an "on my mac" in contacts. Thanks.
What you might try is turning off the cloud forcing the app to save to the disk.
The "On My Mac" section in Contacts (on MacAir) is empty so I figured I'd get rid of the label.
Are there any groups listed under On My Mac? It should disappear once there are no contacts or groups.
SOLVED: There was a "My Card" in "On My Mac" which was being used on the MacAir. Once I got rid of that card and chose one that was in iCloud the "On My Mac" disappeared.
How do I delete contacts "on my mac"
