Contacts backup not complete...

[Terabyte]

I have created 2 backups of my Contacts on my Mac. One .vcf and the other archive, basically because I did not know which would be needed where, so I was playing it safe.

I wanted to import my Contacts into Yahoo UK mail. When I tried the .vcf backup, I only got 49 out of 384 contacts. So then I tried the archive backup but it will not import because it is too big. Now I am worried that I really do not have my contacts backed up.

Since I have been learning how to use Contacts and syncing them with iCloud, I have had so many problems with duplicates, missing Contacts, completely changed such as adding United States of America (I always use USA so I don't know where that comes from) in contacts living in other countries, etc - I think possibly Gmail related? The other thing that I notice is that my Mac Contacts total 384, but my iPhones are 383...

Anyway, what do you think I am doing wrong and how can I make sure that my contacts really are backed up correctly?

 

[Ember1205]

Add the Yahoo! account to Internet Accounts on the Mac and enable the Contacts option.

Launch the Contacts app, click on the iCloud category, and then drag ALL of the contacts to the Yahoo! "folder". They'll all get created in the Yahoo! account and you'll have your backup. You'll have to do this periodically to keep them synced.

 

[chscag]

I wanted to import my Contacts into Yahoo UK mail. When I tried the .vcf backup, I only got 49 out of 384 contacts. So then I tried the archive backup but it will not import because it is too big. Now I am worried that I really do not have my contacts backed up.

Exporting to .vcf can be a bit tricky. You need to make sure you click on the first contact, hold down the shift key and then click on the last contact. That should get all 384. Also, if your contacts are grouped, you'll need to separate them or export the groups individually. And finally, you can export your contact to a PDF file which might be useful as an easier to handle backup.

 

[Terabyte]

Add the Yahoo! account to Internet Accounts on the Mac and enable the Contacts option.

Launch the Contacts app, click on the iCloud category, and then drag ALL of the contacts to the Yahoo! "folder". They'll all get created in the Yahoo! account and you'll have your backup. You'll have to do this periodically to keep them synced.

Great to learn this but unfortunately when complete there was a yellow triangle "Some contacts could not be copied to the server". Only 337 contacts were transferred even though I did Select All contacts which showed the 384. I am not sure which ones are missing, but A to Z are there. I will look later when I boot up the PC to see if I can figure out where the missing ones are.

 

[Terabyte]

Exporting to .vcf can be a bit tricky. You need to make sure you click on the first contact, hold down the shift key and then click on the last contact. That should get all 384. Also, if your contacts are grouped, you'll need to separate them or export the groups individually. And finally, you can export your contact to a PDF file which might be useful as an easier to handle backup.

Yes I did one backup Selecting All in edit and another A-Z using shift key and both times the contacts showed the correct total but the backup did not. So this morning I tried it again after adding Yahoo (see above). The PDF had all of the contacts, the VCF and ABBU had the same total as the Yahoo minus one =336.
I have not created any groups yet though so could not test that.

 

[Ember1205]

Great to learn this but unfortunately when complete there was a yellow triangle "Some contacts could not be copied to the server". Only 337 contacts were transferred even though I did Select All contacts which showed the 384. I am not sure which ones are missing, but A to Z are there. I will look later when I boot up the PC to see if I can figure out where the missing ones are.

When you launch Contacts, choose the All Contacts heading. Scroll up to the top. As your click your way down the list of contacts, it should show you on the right where they are sync'ed and it should only take a couple of minutes to go through the whole list to identify which ones did not sync.

 

[Terabyte]

When you launch Contacts, choose the All Contacts heading. Scroll up to the top. As your click your way down the list of contacts, it should show you on the right where they are sync'ed and it should only take a couple of minutes to go through the whole list to identify which ones did not sync.

Yes, I did notice that. I was hoping to find out why it did not work though. I will do that later today.

It does not help the problem of backing up my contacts though. I have had so many problems with contacts over the years and i am a little tired of going through them all over and over again against my paper copy to make sure they are right. I will use Time Machine as soon as I buy another external and hopefully that will work with no glitches

 

[Ember1205]

Set up an account to sync your contacts to and then set that as the Default Account in the Contacts app. That way, everything you create will sync automatically - reduced need for backup since they're in the cloud at that point.

 

[Terabyte]

I have no idea why this worked, but I finally (x'd) sorted out the huge problem of syncing my Contacts across all of my devices to iCloud. When I finished doing what I said in my other post, I did a new backup and bingo!....it worked

Thank you very much for your help. I am sure within the next week I will be trying to sort out another problem, so please keep your eyes out for me