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address book contacts not syncing with iphone

Contacts Not Syncing between Lion and iOS 5

I was looking around the net for a solution, and finally found a simple fix while reading others' solutions. This fix is for those of you using Lion and iOS5, so it will not work with older OS versions. (It will also work only if the nature of your problem is the same as that of mine, which is iCloud.)

When upgrading to iOS 5, we all had to make an iCloud account. This was the source of my problem. Some of the contacts that appeared in my address book were not on my Mac but were stored on iCloud. Those are the exact contacts that did not sync to my iPhone. To fix, just go to your address book's preferences. Under the accounts tab delete your iCloud account. It will ask you if you want to keep the contacts on your Mac, and you should, of course, hit YES. This will transfer all of the contacts stored on your iCloud onto your Mac, which will then be "syncable" to your iPhone as they should have been in the first place.
 
Still cant synch groups

When I do the above all that happens is that my contacts ALL disappear on my computer so I just put everything I moved from my User / address book (except megadata) back into its place
I still have the same problem, as everyone at the beginning of this thread. Have tried solution above twice
Anyone?
 
It worked the third time...

ok everyone! i tried again, a third time, and storkman - you have saved the day. the trouble was that i was not doing the closing of the programs in the EXACT order you specified
maestro!;)
 
Working on 3GS and Lion OSX 10.7.2

I had the same problem and it is the cloud. It was just showing iCloud in the address book but when I copied all to On My Mac in address book and re-synched it worked. Bit of a faff after cleaning up all my addresses over 2 days, but finally seems to have worked. After in iTunes I ticked synch all contacts then at the bottom ticked Replace all. Make sure you back up contacts first.

*edit* Oops. Meant 3G not 3Gs.
 
Last edited:
A different approach

I followed the Storkman's suggestions and was having no luck - Running a MBP and an iPad 2 on iOs 5. What I found was that this was an iCloud issue. My address book on my MBP was syncing my iCloud contacts and the address book on my iPad was syncing the contact "On my Mac."

When I upgraded to iOs 5 and created an iCloud account, my system created a new category of iCloud contacts that was different from All on My Mac, for some reason. By telling my MBP AND my iPad to use the iCloud contacts, all of my contacts showed up. Problem solved.
 
I have tried following the steps storkman14 suggested, but I get to the iSync step and I'm having two problems. 1) I cannot find where "preferences" are within the application. 2) I have no devices in iSync and it cannot find any devices with the Bluetooth scan. I have my iPhone plugged in, but its not finding it.

I am just wanting to make sure that when I add addresses to my phone it also goes to my computer and vice versa. I thought that iCloud was supposed to be the answer to this issue?

One issue is that I have added/edited contacts on both my iMac and my iPhone so I don't want to completely delete or override one or the other list, but instead, merge.

Can anyone help?
 
thank you storkman141

It seems convoluted, but it worked. Do you know if I have to do this every time I want to update?

----------

It seems convoluted, but it worked. Do you know if I have to do this every time I want to update?
 
There's another way.

I know it's ugly, but it's faster and simpler.
- Open Address Book, and select all your contents. Copy them (Command-C), Delete them (Delete, Return), Paste them back in (Command-V).
- Open iTunes and sync.
Done! Nothing needs closing, rebooting, or anything like that. It works because all cards are flagged as new and so need syncing. (I didn't have iSync installed on my computer so couldn't follow the above steps, which do look like they should work.)
 
The previous post worked

The immediate previous post worked for me but I did a couple other things. First, I duplicated the AddressBook folder from Application Support to my desktop, just in case. Second, after deleting the addresses I then deleted the iCloud account. So far iCloud has caused me more problems than it has fixed.
 
Salrissa said:
I know it's ugly, but it's faster and simpler.
- Open Address Book, and select all your contents. Copy them (Command-C), Delete them (Delete, Return), Paste them back in (Command-V).
- Open iTunes and sync.
Done! Nothing needs closing, rebooting, or anything like that. It works because all cards are flagged as new and so need syncing. (I didn't have iSync installed on my computer so couldn't follow the above steps, which do look like they should work.)
Click to expand...



This finally fixed a similar problem I was having... BUT WARNING we lost all the groups when we did this. If I have to do this again, I would do it group by group.


So now i have 349 contacts to move back in to groups... but at least everything is sync'd back correctly.
 
Thank you!

Storkman,

Here it is more than a year later and after a frustrating afternoon, your solution worked first time (after I figured out how to get to to the address book folder).

Thank you, and Happy New Year.
 
My problem was that when I added an address to my mac, they were not pushed to icloud OR my phone.

The Fix: Go to Preferences on Address Book on Mac and under General tab, select iCloud for the default account. Now all sync between Mac, icloud, and iphone works!
 
Easy way to restore Contacts...

Guys I had problems synchronizing my contacts on my new iphone-4s.

Since I am not that much into computers I tried an alternative solution and it worked out perfectly and it took me less than a minute!

I used "My contacts backup" app on my old iphone (it is a free app for up to 500 contacts). When u run it it backs up your contacts in seconds and prompts you to email it to your self. Once u do, just make sure u can receive this email on your new device (iphone).

Open the email on your new iphone and simply tap on the attachment and all your contacts will be copied on your phone in just seconds... Just like that!!!

Hope this helps

Ps. The app is primarily used to keep a back-up file in your outlook so that you can retrieve your contacts in case you loose them! Also very helpfull!
 
Lion Address book will not sync iPhone 4 - updated fix

The following fix will work for Lion with an additional twist:
* Make sure iPhone is not also trying to sync contact from another source (like Exchange, Google mail, etc..)
* Plug iPhone in to computer and turn off contact syncing then sync again
* Disconnect iPhone
* Quit Address book, iTunes, iCal etc..
* go to (user home folder)/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and move all the contents of that folder with the EXCEPTION of the Metadata folder to your desktop (in case you need to restore them).
*COPY the metadata folder - you may need its contents if lost during fix operation)
* Install iSync (you can copy it from Snow Leopard; it will work
* open iSync from your applications, go to Preferences, and click reset Sync History.
* Reopen AddressBook
* Connect iPhone to iTunes and set up your iPhone to sync contacts as you want them.

I hope this helps everyone - it worked for me!
 
You have got to be kidding me!

I have one sure fire suggestion for all of you having this problem. When you follow all the steps everyone has suggested, after you have deleted, copied, pasted and moved files around...You MUST also be standing on top of the roof of your house, facing south-south east and crow like a rooster three times and then chant, Oh Auntie Em...there's no place like home...there's no place like home...

Or...

You can simply sync like you always have and then click on the "Eject Disc" in iTunes! Yes, it is that simple! A Mac will tell you that it if you remove the Ipod, Ipad, Iphone without ejecting it first, you will not save the data!

What a bunch of goings on about nothing! Most of you are idiots!:
 
The Final Solution for this issue

Hello Guyz

I just solved my address book sync issue by following below link.
This is official solution from apple.
Just follow the steps properly.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2481
click on "For issues syncing contacts and contact groups in Address Book" . if you are not MobileMe user, and u simply sync iphone contacts with mac address book.

Hope this will help you all..

Chirag
 
iPhone 3G & address book sync with lion

by switching to lion a 3G phone isn't able to sync anymore by default the address book contacts. it seems that there are no contacts to sync anymore.

this is because with lion everything is moved to a group iCloud by default - the location 'on my mac' isn't there anymore.
to solve this situation you have to open the preferences within the address book, open the general tab and there select 'On My Mac' as 'Default Account'. After that you again have the category 'On My Mac' within the address book and you now can move back your groups from the 'iCloud' category to this 'On My Mac' category.
Now you also see the groups again within iTunes to sync them again.

:)
 
Can't sync iphone with Yahoo! Contacts

I kept getting this message "Can't sync iphone with Yahoo! Contacts no internet connection" when trying to sync my iphone 4S with Yahoo! mail and contacts. The solution was SO SIMPLE! I logged out of my Yahoo! account, and immediately the computer synced contacts to my iphone! I'm happy now.

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Did you try logging out of Yahoo! Mail? Then sync and it should work properly.
 
Won't Sync

SirAntony: Already tried that. When I select the mac as default, nothing shows up. I edited my iPhone to get rid of the duplicate contacts but can't get rid of groups. I have had a problem ever since they installed that damn iCloud. I have it turned off on phone. I really want to delete it completely, but if I do that, I will have to re-enter all my contacts on the mac. Waiting for new iMac. Really don't wan't to do this now. ITunes has not synced my phone since iCloud, no matter what I tried.
 
No Luck

I have tried your suggestions. Cannot find Library; currently running Lion 10.7.3 - extremely frustrated as my iPhone is EVERYTHING to me. This seems to have started by either joining iCloud or updating to Lion. Any ideas?
 
So this may be common knowledge for most of you, but you may want to make sure you're looking at "All Contacts" - Check the top of your contacts screen and it may say "All iCloud" - if so, click the "Groups" button at the top left and then click "All Contacts".
 
I hope this helps everyone - it worked for me![/QUOTE]

:)
Wow I also have spent hours with apple support on this.
It worked 4 meeee 2222222

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