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Double Contacts and Doubled Birthday Calendar after Big Sur update

Hello, I recently upgraded to Big Sur from Sierra, and the upgrade has doubled all of my Contacts and my Birthdays on my Mac. The doubles are not in iCloud itself, nor on my iPad, nor on my iPhone. I have restored the iCloud backup of my Contacts made prior to the upgrade to Big Sur, several times, that has not worked - the only thing it did was remove the doubled groups in my contacts but not the doubled contacts. I have tried merging all duplicate cards until it says there are no more duplicates, but still the duplicates remain. I do not want to delete the duplicate 2500 cards, as I did this once in the past and eventually discovered I had lost a lot of important contacts forever. I have been through all the Mac forums and cannot find anything, can someone please help? This is super frustrating and an incredible waste of my time trying to solve the problem, it makes working very difficult. Thanks, Mere

Posted on Jul 26, 2021 10:35 PM

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13 replies

Jul 27, 2021 5:34 PM in response to mererowe

Hi mererowe,

Thanks for reaching out using Apple Support Communities. Here to help.

We understand you are seeing duplicate contacts and birthdays in your Contacts app on the Mac.


You mentioned you do not see the duplicates on iCloud.com, is that correct? If this is the case, there may be another internet account which is displaying these contacts. Have you checked for other accounts enabled? The articles below may assist with this. Disable any contact accounts aside from iCloud and see if the duplicates remain.


Add contacts from iCloud, Google, and more to Contacts on Mac

Use your internet accounts on Mac


If the duplicates do not seem to be contained in another account, the article below recommends the process you were taking in merging the contacts to be the best option.


If you see duplicate contacts after setting up iCloud Contacts


Hope this helps. Take care for now

Aug 10, 2021 4:25 AM in response to Jeaniefromherefordshire

Contents from link you can not open >> but not being able the open the link may indicate a More Serious Issue beyond the Double Contacts.


Below is from the link verbatim


Fix corrupted Contacts database

Rating: 4 out of 5

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15 likes

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Last modified Sep 3, 2016 6:32 PM

Almost every problem involving Contacts (and its predecessor Address Book) can be fixed by forcing it to rebuild the database it uses to display your contacts. If you are having problems with edits not saving, deletions not deleting, missing contacts, additions not adding, or not being able to change the name of a new group, this procedure will likely restore correct functionality.


This procedure is only useful for "On My Mac" contacts. Other cloud-based contacts can be easily "rebuilt" be removing the account from Contacts and re-adding it.


Background

Contacts stores your contact data individually as vCards. In order to present a quickly accessible list of contacts, it indexes these vCards into a database. When you make changes to an individual contact, the database must be updated and the vCard must be updated. If the database is corrupt for some reason, the changes can't be saved.


Procedure

The process is simple and only involves deleting the index files. Contacts will do the rest.

It is best to always have a backup before attempting something like this, so I would suggest making a Contacts Archive before beginning.

From the File menu in Contacts, choose Export > Contacts Archive and save the file. It is merely an exact copy of the folder you will be editing.


1. Open the AddressBook folder that is in the Application Support sub-folder of your user Library.

The easiest way to get there is to use Go To Folder in Finder (Go menu).

Copy and paste this path into the path field and click Go.

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

2. In that folder you will find three files,

  • addressbook-v22.abcddb
  • addressbook-v22.abcddb-wal
  • addressbook-v22.abcddb-shm

Move all of these files to the trash.

3. Open Contacts and your list of contacts should quickly populate as the index is rebuilt.


If anything goes wrong, restore from your Backup.

Jul 29, 2021 6:30 AM in response to Nicholas_B2

Hi Nicolas_B2,

Thanks very much for your answer. Unfortunately neither option helps.

Firstly, I have only had all contacts on my Mac, for about the last 15 years. No other address books, no other contact lists are syncing, all is Mac Contacts.

Secondly, I already tried merging all duplicates, I did that until the merge no longer worked : it merged 3 times and then said everything was merged, no more mergers could be made. Nevertheless most of the contacts remained doubled.

Everything was working beautifully in OSX-Sierra, no problems at all. The only thing that has changed is that I upgraded to Big Sur, that has created all the problems, I have been through all the help tips and forums, tried all, and so far nothing has fixed it.

Many thanks for your help, and if you have any other suggestions, I would really appreciate them.

Best regards

Jul 29, 2021 7:45 AM in response to PRP_53

Hi P. Phillips, thanks for the suggestion - I checked System Preferences >> Internet Accounts, and yes iCloud is ticked / enabled. However it was previously also, my understanding is that how my Addresses are syncing between devices, so I don't understand what would be different. To update I have actually just followed the prompts via Mac, I didn't specifically select anything new or go into the System Preferences at any time, that I can remember. Best regards.

Jul 29, 2021 8:02 AM in response to PRP_53

Hi P. Phillips, no, that is not correct. iCloud was already enabled before the update to Big Sur. Nothing changed, other than downloading the update. Now Contacts in Address Book & Birthdays in Calendar - both of which prior were synced via iCloud - are now doubled. The double is only on my Macbook Pro, not on iPhone or iPad, even though all are syncing the same thing. I already tried restoring the iCloud Contacts backup prior to the sync, that has not worked, although I have done it 3-4 times now, keeping trying to see if it could work. All solutions I can find I have tried now several times, it says the same.

Double Contacts and Doubled Birthday Calendar after Big Sur update

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