Mac Contacts app has 17 more contacts?

[donawalt]

I have a problem that my 2 Macs both have 17 more contacts than my iPad and iPhone (which match). I have about 3000 contacts.

My setup is this - I have only 1 Contacts account, google contacts. Google contacts on the web matches the contacts number on the iPhone and iPad.

I have no other accounts on the Mac. It shows my iCloud account, but Contacts is turned off. I went into iCloud.com and confirmed I have no Contacts in iCloud anyway.

I tried to fix this by turning off CONtacts from my Google Account - the number on Contacts on my Mac went to 1, my own card.

I turn it on again, and it has the same number as before - 17 extra contacts somewhere.

Does anyone have any ideas how I might reconcile this? Thanks!

 

[GGJstudios]

I don't know if this will help or not, but I had a similar situation with my contacts, but using iCloud instead of Google. I would create a contact on my iPhone or iPad and it would sync to the other devices, including my Mac. But if I created the contact on my Mac, it would not sync to my other devices. I discovered that contacts I created on the Mac were shown as being "On my Mac" (not sure of the exact wording), and not in iCloud. I identified those contacts and moved them to iCloud and the "On my Mac" disappeared from my contact categories. Now any contact I create on any device will sync to the other devices. I hope this helps!

 

[donawalt]

Thank you for your reply @GGJstudios, I remember at one time a long time ago having the "On My Mac" setting, but it's not there now. When I turn off Contacts from the Google account, there is only 1 contact left - my own card. What's interesting, is when I turn Contacts from the Google account back on, all 3000 contacts are back in the app instantly - I really doubt it's downloading them again. I wonder if they are cached somewhere and not really being re-populated? I don't know how to completely remove them so that I has to download them again. Maybe that's the issue? Although syncing between devices/computers etc is all working perfectly. I also wish I could find those 15 contacts.

 

[GGJstudios]

You might try turning off the Google contacts, then restarting your phone, then turn it back on to see if they come back instantly. The instant population certainly sounds like a caching situation.

 

[donawalt]

Sorry @GGJstudios I was not clear - this is on my MacBook Pro. I am pretty sure the iPhone/iPad are correct, they match the web/browser Google contacts exactly.

But I still took your advice - turned off the Google Account's Contacts, verified my Contacts app on the Mac had just 1 entry, closed it, shut down, waited 10 minutes for good measure, started it up, opened the Contact app (still only 1 entry), opened settings and turned on Contacts in the Google account, and faster than I could Cmd-Tab to the Contacts app, it was fully populated. Sounds like it's cached to me. Maybe it's that fast as there is no large data like the Photos app has to contend with?

If it is cached, I suspect it's some file in AppSupport folder or somewhere, maybe somebody knows. I did some Googling and couldn't find it.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Serious question: do you want to know WHY it’s happening, or just fix it?

Why it’s happening: open a case with Apple, insist on speaking with a Senior Advisor, be prepared for potentially weeks of wait.

Just fix it: Completely remove Gmail from your Mac, then add it back. Yes, this means re-syncing your entire email (and, I presume, calendar too) in addition to contacts but it should work.

 

[donawalt]

HA! Thanks @FreakinEurekan for your suggestion! As far as your question, my answer is FIX IT lol. You really helped me, as last night I thought also, deleting the Google account and re-adding it might very well fix it. By this morning, I forgot the thought lol until I read your post! So thank you for the thought, and YES that fixed it!!!!! 👏👏👏