Address Books

BusyContacts supports multiple address books and syncs with multiple services.

Address Book Source List

The Source List displays your Address Books grouped by server.

• On My Mac — Address Books stored locally on your Mac.
• iCloud — Address Book hosted on iCloud.
• Google — Address Book hosted on Google.
• Exchange — Address Books hosted on Exchange.
• CardDAV — Address Books hosted on other CardDAV servers (e.g. Fruux, macOS Server, Kerio, Zimbra, etc.).

Privileges

• Read-only address books will display a read-only icon next to them that looks like a pencil with a slash through it.
• Address books that you are sharing with others will appear with a publish icon next to them that looks like a broadcast signal. For more info, see Sharing Address Books

Showing and Hiding Address Books

The checkbox next to an address book controls whether its contacts appear in the list. Uncheck it to keep the address book in place and syncing while its contacts stay out of view.

Control + Click (right-click) an address book for quicker ways to change what is shown:

• Show Only This Address Book — Hides the contacts from every other address book.
• Show All Address Books — Shows contacts from all of them again.
• Show None — Clears every checkbox.

note

BusyContacts has no equivalent of BusyCal's Hide Calendar command. An address book cannot be taken out of the source list while you remain subscribed to it: unchecking it hides its contacts, and unsubscribing removes it from the list.

Unsubscribing from an Address Book

Unsubscribing takes an address book out of the source list and stops syncing it.

1. Control + Click (right-click) the address book in the source list.
2. Choose the removal command offered for it. The wording depends on the type of address book: Unsubscribe for a subscribed address book, Stop Sharing for one shared with you over CardDAV, and Delete for a local or owned address book.

For a remote CardDAV, Exchange, or LAN address book you can also double-click it and click Unsubscribe in the Address Book Info dialog.

Bringing an Unsubscribed Address Book Back

1. Open the View menu and choose Show Unsubscribed Address Books.
2. Find the address book and click its faded checkbox to subscribe to it again.
3. Open the View menu and choose Hide Unsubscribed Address Books to tidy up the list.

An unsubscribed address book stays listed while this setting is on

This menu item flips between Show Unsubscribed Address Books and Hide Unsubscribed Address Books to show you the current state. If it reads Hide Unsubscribed Address Books, unsubscribed address books are still being listed, and one you just unsubscribed from stays visible until you choose that command.

Address Book Colors

You may change the color of an address book (and the color of all of its contacts) by control-clicking on it and choosing a color, or double-clicking on it to open the Address Book Info dialog. Note: You can also colorize Tags.

Expanding and Collapsing Accounts

You can expand or collapse an Account in the source list by hovering to the right of the Account name and clicking Show or Hide link.

Creating Address Books

Some servers (iCloud and Google) allow only one address book, while others (Exchange, Fruux, and Zimbra) allow multiple address books. If you're using a server that supports multiple address books, you can create an address book by selecting File > New Address Book.

Creating an "On My Mac" Address Book

You can also create local address books that are stored only on your Mac by selecting "On My Mac" as the location when creating a new address book. These local address books will not sync with any online service or other devices.

Use cases for "On My Mac" address books:

• Archiving contacts: Keep a permanent backup of contacts you no longer actively use but want to preserve
• Privacy-sensitive contacts: Store personal or confidential contacts that you don't want stored on cloud services
• Temporary projects: Maintain contacts for short-term projects without cluttering your main synced address books
• Testing and organization: Create test contacts or reorganize contacts before moving them to a synced address book
• Offline access: Ensure certain contacts are always available even without internet connectivity

Once the address book is created, you can rename it, colorize it, and optionally nest it in an Address Book Group (see next).

Address Book Groups

If you have multiple address books on a server, you can arrange them into nested Group folders by selecting File > New Address Book Group.

Once a Group is created, you drag address books into the Group folder and re-order them. You can then expand/collapse a Group by clicking on the triangle icon next to its name, or show/hide all address books within the group by clicking its checkbox.

In the example above, there are two groups, John and Fred, with address books nested below them.

note

Address Book Groups in BusyContacts are for grouping address books into a nested folder. They are not the same as the Groups in macOS Contacts, which map to Tags in BusyContacts. For more info, see Tags.