deleted address book contacts by accident and they aren't in the trash

[Kilopapa]

I just created my address book with tons of email addresses and mail addresses. Was happy that was done, started to make groups and as I was dragging and dropping, creating a new group, suddenly there were only two vcards showing. I did undo add to group and undo selected card and that was the furthest I could go back to undo. Now I only have 2 addresses. I checked the trash bin and there is nothing in there from address book, no recovered files either. I searched and found a $99 service to to recover files but don't want to pay - seems that there should be some other way. What happened, and what can I do to find all of those contacts again?

 

[r.j.s]

They are gone. They are not stored as files, rather as records in a database. When you delete them, they are gone.

 

[maflynn]

The trash barrel is used for files not data, that is programs do not typically put deleted objects, be they contacts, appointments or data base records in the trash. That being the case you're only option is to retrieve them from a backup.

You do have a backup, OSX makes backing up so easy and seamless there really isn't an excuse not to

 

[Ashka]

You should be able to retrieve any email addresses you have actually used:
Menu bar:: Mail > Window > Previous Recipients
S.