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Restore macOS Contacts from Time Machine backup #

or any other backup of ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/".

Caution

No consideration is given here to iCloud Contacts sync (though thermo2's 20-step procedure is reproduced below without prejudice). Back up, back up, back up and understand what you are doing. Contacts.app needs to be closed before attempting all methods but the first.

Method 1

Open Contacts.app then "Enter Time Machine" from menu bar icon to restore (H/T). Note that the "Browse Other Backup Disks..." option accessed by Option-clicking the Time Machine menu bar icon really means "Browse Other Backup Disks for the current device". (UPDATE: Michael Tsai reports that this method does not work in Monterey; further, he shared that Time Machine restores in apps other than Finder have not worked for him since around Mojave.)

Method 2

Replace ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/" folder with backup copy of same (tested successfully in High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, and Monterey).

Method 3

Add .abbu extension to backup copy of ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/" then double click to import (tested successfully in modern macOS versions; similar to above method, but might make importing recovered data simpler for end users).

Method 4

Replace ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb" with backup copy of same. Tested successfully in Lion but failed in modern macOS versions (worked in Catalina and higher as long as ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/" was otherwise empty).

Method 5

1. Delete contents of ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/".

2. Paste the Metadata folder containing .abcdp files (found at either ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata/" or ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/UUID/Metadata/") from backup copy into ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/".

3. Launch Contacts.app; it will recreate AddressBook-v22.abcddb from the .abcdp files in Metadata/ (tested successfully in High Sierra and Mojave, even for Metadata folders created under newer versions of macOS (which is fortunate, as the process failed in Catalina, Big Sur, and Monterey; after exporting a Contacts Archive from Mojave, it was successfully restored to Big Sur, though logging off and on was required for the contacts to appear)).

Related

• Address Book File Locations (2009)

• contact_reaper.py: "A small program that grabs the information of every contact on a user's mac" (pulls from .abcdp files in ~"/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/UUID/Metadata/") 💾

• SQLite:

  • alexantd's answer to How to access data from a Mac Contacts backup: a .abbu file

  • How to Export a Mac's Contacts or Address Book

  • Synoli's reply to software problem: retrieve contacts data from Time Machine

  • sqlite3 and Address Book.app from the Command Line

  • Database schema

• thermo2's iCloud workaround (linked from Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions: 15c. Viewing or Restoring Contacts / Address Book: "If you're using iCloud, the procedure ... will not 'stick' since the cloud contains the 'master' copy, as soon as you connect to it, anything you restored from your backups will be replaced with the contents from the cloud. For a workaround, see this discussion post."):

  1. If using iCloud, uncheck Contacts box in System Preferences>iCloud
  2. Quit Address Book
  3. Restore Address Book folder in User/Library/Application Support to previous version with Time Machine
  4. Trash all Address Book preferences in User Library/Preferences
  5. Log Out/In or Restart
  6. Start Address Book and verify desired address book version is now available
  7. If not using iCloud you are done, otherwise you need to create new Address Book Folder with current file dates that contains desired previous data
  8. First Go to Web version of iCloud Contacts and erase all contacts
  9. From Address Book Export vCard with All Contacts
  10. Export vCard for each manually defined group
  11. Quit Address Book
  12. Trash Address Book folder in User/Library/Application Support
  13. Trash all Address Book preferences in User Library/Preferences
  14. Log Out/In or Restart
  15. Start Address Book and Import vCard with All Contacts
  16. Import vCard for each defined group one at a time and:
  17. Check review duplicates and keep new
  18. Select Last Import for each group and manually assign to Group Name
  19. Re-Check Contacts box in System Preferences>iCloud
  20. New address book should populate to iCloud and other devices

Update

• Contacts.app skipping (or creating empty files for) some contacts on vCard export

/mac | May 19, 2022

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