Mac Address Book

Delete duplicate contacts
If you are as disorganized as me then you might often end up with more than one map to the same person (often with different phone numbers and email address in each card). If you have hundreds of contacts to find and manually merging these reproductions can be a pain.

An easier way is to choose Card > Look for Duplicates. This automatically rummages through your contacts, identifying cards with the same name. You can choose to merge any identical cards, and also whether to merge cards with the same name but different contact details (the contact details from one card are added to the second and the first card is deleted)

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You can manually merge cards too. Shift/Command-click the cards to merge, then choose Card > Merge Selected Cards.

Adding extra fields to a contact

First I was surprised to see that there was no field "URL" does capture cards, and no obvious way to add one. In fact there are lots more fields you can add to a map, including the URL, birthday, anniversary (or any other date), first name, and so on. You just need to know to add!


To add a field type, choose Card > Add Field, then choose a field to add from the submenu. Some fields (such as Middle Name and Birthday) are unique - you can only have one field per card. Others - like URL or Dates - let you add multiple fields of that type, so you can have two URLs (homepage and work, for example).

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On a related note: You can customise the default fields that appear in a newly-created card by choosing Card > Add Field > Edit Template.

Choosing your own card


When you first set up your Mac, Address Book creates a “me” card with your own contact details. However you might find that you end up with a second card which better represents you - this can happen if, for example, you import your contacts from another app or device into Address Book.

To make this second card the “me” card instead, select it and choose Card > Make This My Card. (You can also locate the “me” card with Card > Go to My Card.)

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Emailing contacts automatically when you change your details

Home or mobile telephone number / email address change is enough work as it is without having to tell all your friends and family your new contact details. The address book has a nice device to facilitate this work a lot. Open the preferences dialog (> Address Book, Preferences), then in general the label chose to notify people when my card exchange option. Now, whenever you change any of your field card, address book, you ask if you want to send a group of people about the change:

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Click Notify, then select the group(s) you want to email. You can also customise the email message that is sent. Then click Send. Your message is sent with your updated vCard attached; each recipient can then just click the vCard to update your details in their address book. Easy!

(You can also send your current contact details to a bunch of people at any time by choosing File > Send Updates.)

I hope you enjoyed these Address Book tips and tricks. Know of any more? Please let me know in the comments below!