Comments on: How to recover missing Address Book data

By: Harry MacLean

Harry MacLean — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:58:08 +0000

Yesterday my wife upgraded her iPod Touch to iOS4. Then she tried syncing her iPod Touch to her MacBook (OS10.4.11). Wiped out all of the info in her iPod calendar and put nothing into iCal on her MacBook. Searched all over the internet. Nothing definitive. This morning, turned on the iPod Touch. All of her calendar info was back. So what happened? We don’t know. This afternoon, however, she made another discovery. The address book on both her iPod Touch and her MacBook had also disappeared. We managed to retrieve most of the data for her MacBook address book using Retrospect Express and an old February backup. Nothing for the iPod Touch. (Not ideal, but better than nothing. Of course, she’ll be creating backups of her MacBook address book regularly now.) Conclusions: 1) As so many are finding out, upgrading an iPod Touch to iOS4 is a bad idea, and 2) Apple needs to get its act together. These kind of syncing problems have been going on for years. My wife is losing confidence in Apple products. She is afraid to try syncing again, lest she lose valuable data for her business. So right now, her iPod Touch is a stand-alone device. That’s not what she paid for…

By: marcosmac

marcosmac — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:29:46 +0000

doesn´t work with “.data.previous”, now I´ll try with “.data.beforesave”

I loose my entire data after upgrade from 10.4 to 10.6, be aware with this

By: Derek A Coffman

Derek A Coffman — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:34:36 +0000

I back up my “trusted” Sony Cie regularly. However yesterday all my addresses disappeared. I have managed to locate them and import them back to my Palm but I am left with the majority of my “addresses” appearing empty- there are address files but no data within!

Any ideas why this has happened and how can I remedy the situation?
D Coffman dercof@ntlworld.com

By: Doodles

Doodles — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:45:18 +0000

Huge thanks.
Didn’t work replacing AddressBook.data w/ AddressBook.data.previous
BUT then tried replacing AddressBook.data w/ AddressBook.data.beforesave
and as you said, WHEW!!!
Also tnx to replier who suggested Address Book>File>Back up Address Book -

By: BananaSlug

BananaSlug — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:08:04 +0000

The problem with this solution is that you have to notice the missing data prior to the automatic backup. My ‘AddressBook.data.previous’ is just as empty as the original data file. I note that it indicates that it was modified at noon today. That was after my original data file was already empty. So in my case, no solution. What’s really wierd is that my back up on my external hard drive is just as blank and I haven’t backed up to that disk, nor was it connected to my computer, for more than a month, way before this problem started. All I can think is that it’s a virus (??!!)

By: Tim Gaden

Tim Gaden — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:01:22 +0000

Thanks for letting me know. It always nice to feel a post is useful!

By: Erika

Erika — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:12:44 +0000

Thank you so much! I got it all back just in time for Christmas cards. FHEW!

By: Damian

Damian — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:32:32 +0000

You guys are freaking Awesome! Much Thanks! ..

I just recovered all of my contacts!

I am using snow leopard and so it seams the files names a little different but in essence the steps are the same, you can recognized which is the backup file by the date it was created on.

Thanks!

By: Vangie Lacuesta

Vangie Lacuesta — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:23:51 +0000

I can’t retrieve my address book anymore at my apple .. can you show how to restore it on the desktop.

By: Kim

Kim — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:04:59 +0000

If your address book is still empty after trying the above, repeat the process except with AddressBook.data.beforesave. That worked for me fortunately. And I backed up my address book immediately upon reopening and finding my contacts there.