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Protect your Mac Contacts Data by Archiving It

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For many people, the data in their Contacts application represents years of effort and would be nearly impossible to replace manually. Being somewhat of a backup fanatic – and because my Contacts list is essential to my work – I backup my Contacts data, separately from my other backup solutions, on a regular basis from within the Contacts application. What this does, is creates an archive of all of my individual contacts, which I can reimport into the Contacts application should the need ever arise.

Exporting Contacts data on the Mac image

To backup your contacts, click File on the Contacts menu, point to Export and then click Contacts Archive. The default name for the archive is the word Contacts – and the current date (i.e. Contacts – 06-25-2014) but you can change the name, if you wish. From the All Contacts dialog box, you then navigate to the folder where you wish to save the archive. This should be an external drive or cloud drive and not your Mac’s hard drive.

contacts archive dialog box image

If you ever need to bring your archive back into the Contacts app, choose File > Import from the menu, navigate to the location of the archive file, select the file and then click Open.

If you have a large contacts list that would be difficult to replace, it might be a good idea to create an archive of your contacts on a regular basis. It’s also recommended if you are making any major changes to your Contacts data, such as importing contacts from another application.

Create Smart Groups in Mac’s Contacts Application

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Apple’s Contact’s application includes a helpful feature called “Smart Groups”, which work similarly to Smart Folders in OS X. With Smart Groups, you can quickly create folders on-the-fly based on specific bits of information.

Contacts smart filters

For instance, let’s say that you work at American Express in Chicago and want to put together a work softball team. In this case, you could create a Smart Group to include everyone whose e-mail address is americanexpress.com.

But in order to ensure that you don’t include people who work at other branches, you can then add an additional criteria: City is equal to Chicago. (City Is Chicago).

Click plus to add new criteria row

Now there are a few people whom you know hate softball and would not welcome receiving such an e-mail from you. You can exclude individuals from the group by using the Is Not condition. For example, I could add a new condition row to my group:

Email Is Not old_crabass@americanexpress.com (you can also use the Does Not Contain operator as well.

Exclude members from group

Quick Guide: To Create a Smart Group in Contacts

  1. Select File > New Smart Group from the menu
    Or
    Press the ⌥ + ⌘ + N keyboard combination
  2. Type a name for the new Smart Group in the box on top of the window.
  3. Click the leftmost drop-down list in the first line and choose on which field you are going to filter (name, email, city, department, company, etc.)
  4. Click the drop-down arrow in the center box in the first row and choose the operator you want to use (is, is not, contains, does not contain, is set, is not set, etc.).
  5. In the last box of the first row, type in the criteria by which to filter (ie. email, person’s name, name of company, etc.).
  6. To add another criteria row, click the + (plus) symbol and repeat steps 3-5.
  7. To remove a criteria row, click the – (minus) symbol.
  8. When finished, click OK
  9. To modify a smart group, right-click the group and choose Edit Smart Group from the contextual menu.

Use QR Codes to Pass On your Contact Information

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Many people use QR Codes as a quick way to pass on information to others. For instance, you can create QR Codes to make it easy for people to follow you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and much more.

QR Codes are also an excellent way to automatically import your contact information to someone else’s Contacts application. How you do this, is to create a QR Code that contains contact details in vCard format. Instructions are below. I was playing around with this the other day and thought it was cool enough to share.

Use QR codes incontacts

Quick Guide: Create QR Codes with your Contact Information

  1. Go to http://www.qrstuff.com
  2. Click the Contact Details radio button under the Data Type area.
  3. Under the Content area, select the vCard radio button.
  4. Fill in any information that you want included in the QR Code. This could include First Name, Last Name, cell, address, etc.
  5. Click the Download QR Code button.
  6. Place the image on your Web site so people can scan it or you can e-mail it people as well. When they scan it, your information will be added to the Contacts application.

Note: There are several free QR Code Scanner apps available in the App store.

Add Facebook Contacts to Contacts App in Mountain Lion

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With Mac OS X Mountain Lion, you can import information for your Facebook contacts into the Contacts application. From System Preferences, click Mail, Contacts & Calendars under the Internet & Wireless pane and then click the Facebook icon in the left pane.

Adding a Facebook Account to Mac image

You will then need to type in your Facebook credentials. Once you have done so, any of your contacts that are on Facebook will have a Facebook entry in their contact card.

To Import Facebook Contacts into the Contacts App

  1. Click  and then click System Preferences.
  2. Click the Mail, Contacts & Calendars icon under the Internet & Wireless pane.
  3. If necessary, click the + symbol on the bottom of the left pane.
  4. Click facebook in the right pane.
  5. Enter your Facebook credentials.
  6. Click the Get Profile Photos to import your Contacts’ profile photos into the Contacts app.

Import Facebook Profile Pics into Contacts image

Safeguarding Access to your Contacts

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The Privacy pane in the System Preferences application allows you to see and change which applications on your system have access to your Contacts app. Sometimes, apps like to “grant themselves” access to your Contacts, which may not always be what you want. OS X does however require you to grant permission to an app the first time it seeks to access the Contacts app so hopefully, nothing should be slipping by without your consent. But it is a good idea to occasionally review which applications are accessing your list of contacts and revoke that access if appropriate.

Privacy Pane in System Preferences image

To Manage Access to the Contact App

  1. Click  from the menu.
  2. Click System Preferences
  3. Under the Personal area, click Security & Privacy
  4. Click the Privacy tab
  5. Click Contacts in the left pane. All apps that have access to the Contacts app are displayed in the right pane.
  6. To revoke access to the Contacts app, click the box next to its name to uncheck it.

Easily Share your Address Book Contact with Others

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New in Lion is the ability to easily share your Address Book contacts with others via e-mail.  To do so, click the Share button on the bottom of the page in the person’s card in the Address Book application.

The Share button in the Address Book application

The contact’s vCard is then automatically added as an e-mail attachment to a new blank e-mail message.  Once you send out the e-mail, the recipient can click on the vCard attachment to add the contact to their address book.
E-mail message with vCard attached

How to See a Contact’s Groups in Address Book

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In Address Book, clicking on a contact group displays all contacts that make up that group. But did you know that you can also see all the groups that a particular contact belongs to?

Display all groups that a contact belongs to in Address Book

To do so, display your groups and ensure that the All Contacts group is the active group.  Then, click the name of the contact card whose groups you wish to see and then hold down the Option (or Alt) key on your keyboard. All of the groups that the contact belongs to will be highlighted in blue.  In the example above, we can see that the contact “Bluemound Gardens” belongs to four groups.

 

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