Accessing multiple address books from Apple Address Book application

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1

What's the correct method presently for accessing multiple address books via CardDav from Apple's Contacts application on Mac?

For example, user 'foo' on my ownCloud 9.1 server has a default address book. The URL for this is 'https://example.com/remote.php/dav/addressbooks/users/foo/contacts/' and I can access this successfully from Contacts 10.0 (1756.9).

I created a second ownCloud address book called 'bar'. The URL for this is 'https://example.com/remote.php/dav/addressbooks/users/foo/bar/'. If I try to add this as a second "account" in Apple's Address Book, it shows, "This account already exists."

Simply having access to the first address book via CardDAV does not cause the second to appear in Address Book. How can I cause it to do so?

2

Hi,

you probably need to use the iOS/OS X address which is currently not shown in the contacts app:

3

Good idea, but when I tried https://example.com/remote.php/dav/principals/users/foo/ nothing changed. Only the contacts in the default list are shown.

4

Quick search on google leads to the following. Seems you need to say thanks to Apple for this limitation:

Single addressbook

Affects: OS X 10.6 until OS X 10.10

OS X addressbook can only ever work with 1 address book. Even though the CardDAV standard makes it easy for users to own more than one addressbook, this is not supported.

Unfortunately this means that if a user has more than one addressbook in their account, only the 'first' will show up, and contacts from other addressbooks are completely hidden to the user.

This can cause for a lot of confusion, and there is no obvious solution other than simply enforce a 1 address book limit for users.

-> http://sabre.io/dav/clients/osx-addressbook/

5

Thanks, that looks like the definitive answer.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

6

Just a small hint as I just was trying to configure OwnCloud Address Book sync on my new Mac:

According to the postings above, the issue affects OS X 10.6 until OS X 10.10.
I am afraid to say, but after some tests I believe that OS X 10.12 (Sierra) still only supports one single Address Book and just synchronizes the first if more than one exists.

(OwnCloud Server version is 10.0.3)

Regards,
Michael

7

Other CardDAV clients (e.g., BusyMac Contacts) do support multiple address books on Mac OS X.