10.5: One way to recover from an Address Book crash

Dec 04, '07 07:30:05AM

Contributed by: datenimperator

I was fooling around with a vCard importer application when I somehow damaged my Address Book database. All of my contacts were gone, and even importing the backup that I created minutes ago didn't work. Address Book just sat there and did nothing, displaying an empty screen for minutes, so I was sure that I couldn't import the backup that I created before. Somewhere I found a hint stating that it would, however, rebuild its database if you deleted it. The database is the file named AddressBook-v22.abcddb, located in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook.

So I closed Address Book, deleted everything from that directory, and copied, from the package contents of my last Address Book backup, only the folders Images and Metadata, plus the file MailRecents-v4.abcdmr. Then I started Address Book and, voila!, all contacts were back where they belong.

[robg adds: I would suggest moving, rather than deleting, the files -- just in case. Once you're sure things are working again, then trash the files.]

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