Contacts: Smart Groups Conditions

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Level 1

8 points

Contacts: Smart Groups Conditions

Hi all,

I'm on High Sierra Ver 10.13.3 (17D102) using Contacts "Smart Groups" to automatically filter my contacts by a certain date which I have attached to each entry. Unfortunately, it seems that the "Date is in the next" function is pulling contacts with dates that have already passed. For instance, I set up a Smart Group to include all contacts that have a date coming up "in the next" "1 year" and the Smart Group included entries of every contact with a date attached, here's an example with a date in April 2016 (attached).

So, it looks like attaching a date to a contact is somehow making the date reoccur yearly (like an anniversary) and this triggers the Smart Groups function to group every single event within a year (which would of course be all of them). I've tried editing the entries on OSX as well as iOS and neither appear to have a way to ensure that the event only occurs once.

My question; Is there a way to add a date to a contact that does not function as an anniversary or repeat yearly?

My goal; To have an automated way of managing client lists by date, native to Mac & iPhone.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Mar 22, 2018 10:27 AM

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Answer 1

djignight Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 23, 2018 9:50 AM in response to tygb

Thanks for the reply & attempt. I tried re-creating the first method & had a bizarre result. When I put in "card was updated after" and click ok, it doesn't filter anything. So I opened the smart group, and it appears to have deleted all conditions and I'm left with just this:
No matter what other conditions I put in, if I use the "card was updated after" function, it appears to delete everything and restart looking like this.

Also, the "Anniversary is not set" function doesn't appear to filter anything out at all either. I'm starting to wonder if theres a way to reset contacts, or smart groups permissions? Is it possible that Contacts or Smart Groups are corrupted?

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Answer 2

tygb

Level 9

64,598 points

Mar 23, 2018 1:45 PM in response to djignight

Do you have any web mail address created like gmail or any as in the original question it is not shown .

You must have an Apple ID that is kept same as gmail address , and the Mac user must be signed in with Apple ID in iCloud account see this article Sign in with your Apple ID - Apple Support

And in in system preferences > internet accounts > select web mail account and select all boxes .

Same with iCloud account check all boxes except back to my Mac .

And in smart group see this screen shot I am able to create it , but had to type a name example " aa " in the field that person contacts details are already saved in my address book so that ok button will be black in color and not greyed out .And in address book preferences > general > the default account can be selected .

I can not immediately conclude that address book application is corrupted , a vey simple technique that is preferred is to create a new user account see this article How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support

And then create smart groups in this account and just monitor it and for the time being don't delete old user account .

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Answer 3

tygb

Level 9

64,598 points

Mar 23, 2018 7:01 PM in response to djignight

See these screen shots .

It means anniversary is before 12 months and card has changed in 12 months ( ie .1 year ) .Set this criteria .

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Answer 4

djignight Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 23, 2018 1:48 PM in response to tygb

By logging in to my iCloud contacts, I actually figured out what the cause of this is. Each time I set a date to a contact (whether it's on my phone or on my mac), it automatically makes the event repeat every year (as an anniversary). I can't seem to find a way to set it to stop from repeating, or to just attach a single date that doesn't function as a repeating anniversary... If I could find a way to do this, it would solve my problem with Smart Groups.

Any help appreciated, thanks!

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Answer 5

tygb

Level 9

64,598 points

Mar 22, 2018 11:11 AM in response to djignight

You can set smart groups in two different ways see these screen shots , if try add past year like 2016 it doesn't accept but recent year 2018 is added .

Second way -

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Contacts: Smart Groups Conditions

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