How to restore Address Book data

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hey all,

I've managed to stuff up my address book by trying to sync it with gmail contacts, and have lost most of my contacts.

I have a backup of the original files before the sync, but i cant figure out how to restore it... it's not a backup taken from within address book, just the files copied to an external drive... can somebody please tell me how i can restore those to my address book?

Thanks heaps :)
 

bobtomay

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?? How did you copy them from location a to location b?

If you just did a drag and drop, I would try a drag and drop from b back to a.

They can always be removed again if it doesn't work.
 
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?? How did you copy them from location a to location b?

Using backup software (SuperDuper)

If you just did a drag and drop, I would try a drag and drop from b back to a.

They can always be removed again if it doesn't work.

Tried this... it doesn't work... Address book doesn't pick up the new files... however I think (from memory) it keeps the old addresses, which makes me wonder if these are the correct files?
 

bobtomay

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How old is your SD backup?

If it's current, boot to the SD backup and run SD from there to restore your internal drive. Be less time than trying to troubleshoot it.

Someone else may come along and know exactly which files you need to replace with those on your SD backup.
 
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How old is your SD backup?

If it's current, boot to the SD backup and run SD from there to restore your internal drive. Be less time than trying to troubleshoot it.

Someone else may come along and know exactly which files you need to replace with those on your SD backup.

That's not a bad idea Bob... Dont know why i didnt think of that. I've put this issue on hold for a few months now, so maybe i did, not sure... i'll try and let u know how i go.

Cheers
 

bobtomay

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When you boot into the SD backup, check and see if you have those contacts still in your address book there first. If not a restore won't help.

If they are, I found the place where that info is stored.

It's in Users / your user / Library / Application Support / AddressBook / Metadata

So if it's all there in your SD backup, you should be able to just replace that Metadata internal file with the one on your SD backup.
 

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