Resolved Help needed using Contacts in 10.8

[DanielCoffey]

I would appreciate some guidance on the appropriate way to use the Contacts app in 10.8 under my specific circumstances.

Up until today, I have my Mac Pro at home with a single list of contacts. Some are genuine personal contacts - people with phone numbers and birthdays and so on. I have also accumulated other contacts that might just be the physical address of a business I have used in the past or perhaps the user name and password that I registered for an eShop to save me having to remember it.

While I do have an iPad2, it is the wifi model and almost never leaves the house so I have told it not to share my Contacts over iCloud. Up until today, I have been happy with my jumbled Contacts list residing solely on the Mac Pro.

I have just bought an iPhone on an unlimited calls plan and will obviously be building up a list of contact numbers for people I want to call and it would make sense to have a shared group of Contacts in the Cloud.

I want to know if there is a good way of either segregating the "non-personal" contacts of the shops and so on into their own group or of somehow marking them as "Do Not Share on Cloud".

I am more than happy to redo the list of Contacts to segregate them as it is not a huge list. It is basically about time I learned how to use the damned thing properly so that I have a shared list of contacts that I can use and extend on both my iPhone and my Mac Pro but that does not expose my shopping passwords on the phone.

Does this make sense?

 

[rrm998]

^^^^^
You can create any number of groups within the Contacts App. Then you can limit what you are viewing based on the group you have selected. This works on OS X and iOS.

 

[DanielCoffey]

I have seen how sharing Contacts in the Cloud makes the Contact list visible in iOS but I have not seen a way to prevent the ones I want to keep off the Cloud being exposed when the phone syncs.

I know you can click on the groups to filter the contacts and I have also seen how you can tell iOS that you only want to see a subset of the groups on the phone but there didn't seem any way to stop someone clicking the other groups and making them instantly visible on iOS too.

Is it anything to do with Contacts - Preferences - Accounts? There is no help file associated with that page. Currently the only entry is On My Mac (Local).

 

[swiftaw]

You can choose which contracts are stored on iCloud and which are stored On My Mac. The ones stored "On My Mac" will not automatically sync to your iPhone.

 

[DanielCoffey]

So how do you choose which Contacts are On My Mac and which are in the Cloud?

This is the step I am missing. At the moment on my desktop I only have the On My Mac list.

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Ah, wait a moment. If I go to Settings - iCloud - Contacts and tick that, I see an iCloud entry pops up in Contacts as well as On My Mac.

I can see how to assign a Default location when a New Contact is set up but how do I designate the location for existing contacts?

There are some existing contacts that I am happy to share to the Cloud but there are plenty that I want to only exist On My Mac.

 

[swiftaw]

Set the default to "On my Mac"

Now, when you look at your address book, you should see both "On my Mac" and "iCloud" on the left hand side.

You can drag and drop contacts between them.

When creating a new contact, just select whichever location you want to create it in, then create it.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Got it! I understand it now, thank you. I appreciate the help.

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For future folks asking this question, I did the following...

1. On my desktop, tick System Preferences - iCloud - Contacts. This has the effect of moving your Contacts list out of On My Mac and into the Cloud. At this point, ALL your contacts are in the Cloud only and not on your desktop any more.

2. In desktop Contacts App, check that Contacts - Preferences - Accounts - iCloud - Enable this account is ticked.

3. In the desktop Contacts app, make sure that Contacts - Preferences - General - Default Account is On My Mac. This means that any new Contacts that you put on your Mac will stay there until you explicitly move them to the iCloud account. If you go to a new eShop and want to record the account settings you used, it will stay on your home desktop.

4. In the desktop Contacts app you will now see that all your Contact entries are currently in the Cloud. Select iCloud - All iCloud. Select the first entry then shift-click on the last one and drag everything into the All On My Mac group. All your contacts will now be manually moved back to your desktop and removed from the Cloud.

5. Manually select the specific contacts you DO want to have exposed in the Cloud and drag them into the All iCloud group. This will place a COPY of your selected contact into the Cloud. If you ever make a change to the Contact in either place, the edit will be reflected into the other place when you sync your device.

When creating new Contacts, if you do it at home, it will go into the On My Mac group by default and stay there unless you drag the contact manually over to the iCloud group. If you add a contact on your mobile device it will be added to the Cloud group only and will remain there, accessible on all your devices until you manually move it to the On My Mac.

Does that cover it all?

 

[rrm998]

I was thinking you might want to sync all your contacts with iCloud and then use a group that you create to limit which ones you typically see on your phone. Then if you ever find that you are away from your computer and need one of those contacts, they are available to you.

The contacts not syncing to the iCloud aren't backed up. Make sure you are backing up your laptop.

 

[DanielCoffey]

All my On My Mac contacts are backed up through Time Machine as well as a quarterly Clone.

Going forward, all new contacts will be in the Cloud. I just needed to know how to keep the private contacts that I already have from appearing on the phone and it is sorted now.

Thanks for the help folks - I have gone through my Contacts and have them sorted into Cloud or not-Cloud.

Resolved.