Monterey, Contacts and Time Machine

Bruce Horrocks

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Sep 26, 2022, 2:39:55 PM9/26/22

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If you have a Time Machine backup on Monterey (12.6) go into Contacts,
select any card and then choose Time machine -> Enter Time Machine from
the menu bar.

You should then get the 'deck of cards' effect. Go back a short amount
of time and, for me, the display changes to say "No cards" instead of
the version of the card at that time.

I get this even on a card that I've just changed, which is now worrying
me that Contacts are not actually being backed-up.

Does anyone else get this?

I have Contacts set to synch via iCloud - it would be interesting to see
if anyone who doesn't use iCloud experiences the same behaviour.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey, England

Chris Ridd

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Sep 26, 2022, 3:07:07 PM9/26/22

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On 26/09/2022 19:39, Bruce Horrocks wrote:
> If you have a Time Machine backup on Monterey (12.6) go into Contacts,
> select any card and then choose Time machine -> Enter Time Machine from
> the menu bar.
>
> You should then get the 'deck of cards' effect. Go back a short amount
> of time and, for me, the display changes to say "No cards" instead of
> the version of the card at that time.
>
> I get this even on a card that I've just changed, which is now worrying
> me that Contacts are not actually being backed-up.
>
> Does anyone else get this?

Same. In fact every snapshot except the last one is empty.

> I have Contacts set to synch via iCloud - it would be interesting to see
> if anyone who doesn't use iCloud experiences the same behaviour.

Hm, I'm syncing them via iCloud too.

--
Chris

Graeme Wall

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Sep 26, 2022, 5:02:55 PM9/26/22

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On 26/09/2022 19:39, Bruce Horrocks wrote:

I get the same effect but I'm also syncing via iCloud.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Graeme Wall

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Sep 27, 2022, 7:58:13 AM9/27/22

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On 27/09/2022 09:40, Alan B wrote:

> +1
>
> According to this answer on Apple Discussions, if Contacts are set to use
> use iCloud sync, they are omitted from backup by TM.
>
> <https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251269624>
>

Specifically go to:
<https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/icloud-ipad/mm1d9cfdb498/1.0/icloud/1.0>

Bruce Horrocks

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Sep 27, 2022, 12:26:56 PM9/27/22

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Thanks for that Graeme.

So restore is now by date and the only way to see what you're actually
restoring is to first do a restore, and then see if the record you
wanted was restored? If not then repeat. :-(

Not sure why they couldn't be saved in Time Machine as well - it's not
as if the Contacts list is going to be many TBs of disk?

Joerg Lorenz

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Sep 27, 2022, 1:14:11 PM9/27/22

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Am 27.09.22 um 18:26 schrieb Bruce Horrocks:

> So restore is now by date and the only way to see what you're actually
> restoring is to first do a restore, and then see if the record you
> wanted was restored? If not then repeat. :-(
>
> Not sure why they couldn't be saved in Time Machine as well - it's not
> as if the Contacts list is going to be many TBs of disk?

Because ist simply redundant and can cause unwanted confusion down the road?

--
Gutta cavat lapidem (Ovid)

Richard Tobin

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Sep 27, 2022, 1:45:02 PM9/27/22

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In article <bbee07e9-dc0e-e09c...@scorecrow.com>,

Bruce Horrocks <07....@scorecrow.com> wrote:

>I have Contacts set to synch via iCloud - it would be interesting to see
>if anyone who doesn't use iCloud experiences the same behaviour.

It's the same for me, and I have my contacts synced with Google.

-- Richard

Chris Ridd

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Sep 28, 2022, 12:22:23 AM9/28/22

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On 27/09/2022 18:24, Alan B wrote:

> On 2022-09-27, Bruce Horrocks <07....@scorecrow.com> wrote:
>> Not sure why they couldn't be saved in Time Machine as well - it's not
>> as if the Contacts list is going to be many TBs of disk?
>

> You can of course export your contacts to an archive file (e.g.
> Contacts - 27-09-2022.abbu) and save it in your Documents folders
> which will then get backed up by TM.

I was going to suggest selecting all contacts and exporting to vCard
(vcf) format as a workaround. You can probably script it. Vcard is a
standard textual format.

--
Chris

Jaimie Vandenbergh

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Sep 28, 2022, 9:14:25 AM9/28/22

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On 27 Sep 2022 at 17:26:54 BST, "Bruce Horrocks" <07....@scorecrow.com>
wrote:

> Not sure why they couldn't be saved in Time Machine as well - it's not
> as if the Contacts list is going to be many TBs of disk?

I'd guess they didn't want to do all the coding needed to cope with the
condition "you restored from TM but you're synced with iCloud and the
restored entries are older than the iCloud ones but you want them but
aargh"

Cheers - Jaimie
--
If you can't measure it, it's not science.

Graham J

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Sep 28, 2022, 1:00:13 PM9/28/22

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Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 27 Sep 2022 at 17:26:54 BST, "Bruce Horrocks" <07....@scorecrow.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Not sure why they couldn't be saved in Time Machine as well - it's not
>> as if the Contacts list is going to be many TBs of disk?
>
> I'd guess they didn't want to do all the coding needed to cope with the
> condition "you restored from TM but you're synced with iCloud and the
> restored entries are older than the iCloud ones but you want them but
> aargh"

But surely that applies to all files, not just items in Contacts?

--
Graham J