Today MacFixIt carries one of those gut-wrenching horror stories from a reader that you read about from time to time:

Tonight, while cleaning up my address book to sync to the blackberry, I got the spinning ball of death, which resulted in having to restart the computer. When I did, address book was empty the next time I opened it. Database gone. Backup database gone.

Not long ago, a Hawk Wings reader experienced something similar after syncing his PowerBook with a Nokia 6682. Although he enjoyed the added bonus of a very puzzling exchange with Apple Tech Support following his wipe-out.

Of course, prevention is the best cure. That is to say, you can’t really lose what you have backed up. Back up your ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder often.

However, if you find yourself in a jam and the backup is not as up-to-date as it might be, there is still hope.

Address Book is smart. It keeps a little backup of its own in a AddressBook.data.previous file inside the directory mentioned above:

To restore it, all you need to do is quit Address Book, delete the dead AddressBook.data file and rename the backup to AddressBook.data. Whew!

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MacWorld columnist and macOSXHints top dog Rob Griffiths takes time out to throw together a few hints on making sure that an iCal calendar is empty before you delete it.

He points out that you can find out what’s left in an old calendar by using iCal’s search feature (make sure only the calendar you are investigating is ticked in the calendar’s list, Select View > Show Search Results).

Or, if you are sure it is empty, highlight it and try to delete it.

If it is empty, iCal removes it without asking any questions. If it’s not, then iCal prompts you to make sure you want to get rid of it.

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My RSS reader NetNewsWire served up a tragic Apple Mail story today.

A poster on the macOSXHints forums had a very bad day :

So I was having trouble with one of my POP3 accounts in Mail.app. It was locking up when receiving the last message. It’s safe to say that this problem is already fixed.

In the process of fixing it I decided to remove the account and re-add it (a common solution in MS Outlook). When I deleted the account I did not realize that it also deletes the folder with all your messages in it with out noticing me! So I lost all of my email in that folder (stupid me didn’t have a backup of that box). Is there anyway to get it back? I tried using Data Rescue X but it pretty much just recovered files that were already there (unless I am using it wrong).

Please help! Thank you!

The sad thing is that there is no help. When you delete a POP account in Mail.app, it doesn’t just delete the settings. It deletes the lot. Gone.

Of course, it’s not helpful after the fact to point out that Mail warns you first:

Or that you should have a backup.

Or that MS Outlook is an unreliable guide for life as a whole.

Or that IMAP is an email protocol with many advantages.

Still, it’s not after the fact for most readers here (yet).

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