January 19, 2007
Restore Address Book data in a flash
Posted Jan. 19, ’07, 9:24 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Troubleshooting
If you’ve ever happened to chillingly open up your Address Book to find it devoid of any information that could remotely be considered useful, stay calm. Don’t panic. Breathe normally. It’s going to be okay. Our buddy Tim over at Hawk Wings has a life-saving tip for those of you dealing with Address Book data loss.
Navigate over to ~/Library/Application Support/Address Book in which you will find a holy file by the name of AddressBook.data.previous. Replace AddressBook.data with that file and open up your Address Book. Voila! Address Book keeps a backup of its information in that location, for just such an occasion.
It’s a good safety net, but it’s no excuse for regular backups. I keep my Address Book synced via .Mac, and I back it up using Apple’s Backup app every day. For other suggestions on backup regimes, check out the comments on my post soliciting help on just such a process. There’s some good stuff in them thar comments. That reminds me, it’s time to run my backup.
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See the File menu in Address Book - I believe that "Revert to Address Book Backup" does the same thing??