Address book restore in Lion 10.7.2

[benpop]

For some reason iCloud just accidentally deleted all my address book items. I was then trying to restore them from a time machine backup. Before in Snow Leopard you were able to restore single addresses by opening time machine when the address book was running (in time machine right-clicking on a single address and then hitting restore). When I do that now in Lion the only two options I can see when I right click on a time machine address are "export vcard" and "spotlight: name" ... nothing that will really restore my addresses.

Has anyone any idea how to restore addresses from a time machine backup in Lion?

 

[CodeBreaker]

For some reason iCloud just accidentally deleted all my address book items. I was then trying to restore them from a time machine backup. Before in Snow Leopard you were able to restore single addresses by opening time machine when the address book was running (in time machine right-clicking on a single address and then hitting restore). When I do that now in Lion the only two options I can see when I right click on a time machine address are "export vcard" and "spotlight: name" ... nothing that will really restore my addresses.

Has anyone any idea how to restore addresses from a time machine backup in Lion?

1. Quit Address Book
2. Open Finder. Option-click Go and select Library. Browse to Application Support --> Address Book
3. Drag the folder named Metadata to the Desktop and delete the file with the extension "abcddb"
4. Connect your Time Machine drive and option-click Time Machine icon in the dock. It will open the Address Book folder in the Time Machine UI
5. Restore the Metadata folder from your most recent backup

Launch Address Book

 

[dwboston]

Also works for corrupted files

I had a very different problem, but the solution works just as well. Every time I launched address book in Lion, it would function but when you quit the app, it would freeze, forcing a force quit. This of course would dump any changes you would have made during your last address book session. Following your suggestions above, it brought back address book to its normal self. I may have lost a couple of entrees I made during the past week, but that was a minor inconvenience.

dwboston