Address Book: Picked Last for Kickball

Written on October 19, 2006 by Jason Guthrie and 79 people have commented

In today’s world of Google Maps, Skype, and iChat, it seems as though AddressBook.app is being used less and less. I suppose it seems silly to keep your friends’ emails written down when all you have to do is shoot them a quick IM or give them a quick call on your cell phone. And don’t get me started on addresses… who keeps track of those antiquated things anyway?

I do.

That’s right. My name is Jason… and I’m an Address Book user. I love the way that Address Book holds all of my precious information in a way that only OS X can. I love how it integrates so well with many of my other favorite applications such as Delicious Library and Quicksilver.

The reason for this post is simple – to convince you to start using Address Book too. My plan for accomplishing this includes highlighting a few plug-in, scripts, and add-ons that I’ve found over the past few months that have made Address Book more than just a place to store email addresses. Instead, Address Book is a powerful addition to my arsenal of productivity tools.

Google Maps Plug-in
For those of you who keep actual addresses inside Address Book you will find this plug-in to be extremely helpful – and may even convince the rest of you to start keeping track of those addresses. Once installed, the plug-in does just as its name implies – it allows you to instantly pull up a Google Map of that location. But even better is the plug-ins ability to instantly pull up directions to that location using the address stored under your own name.

Plaxo
Plaxo provides a free service that securely updates and maintains the information in your address book. Although you can use their website to view your contacts, the beauty of this service is it’s ability to sync with Address Book. Many of my friends and colleagues are also signed up with the service so that every time they update their contact information it is automatically updated in my address book. And since your data is stored online it is available just in case your weekly backup didn’t run.

Quicksilver
As I mentioned earlier, with the Quicksilver Address Book plug-in your contacts are only a few keystrokes away. For example, I can type in my dad’s name and be presented with all of his contact information – all without ever opening Address Book. I can then automatically compose an email or just choose one of his phone numbers that then displays across my entire screen for me to see. (Don’t worry, I changed the number)

Skype
With a little help from AppleScript and a plug-in found on MacOSXHints.com, you can call your contacts from within your Address Book application. The only trick is that your phone numbers (at least for the US) need to be formatted like this: +1-555-555-5555.

JABMenu
If Quicksilver isn’t for you, then JABMenu might be another worthy option. JABMenu lives in the menu and triggers an action such as displaying the content in large type, copying it to the clipboard, creating a new email, dialing the phone (accomplished by running a customizable AppleScript), or showing an address on a map using an online map service. This one has a 30-minute trial and runs you a cool $10 for the full version.

Well, if these plug-ins and add-ons weren’t enough to convince you of the awesome functionality and integrative power of Address Book then I don’t know what will. This list is not meant to be comprehensive in any way but hopefully it gives you a taste of what’s out there and what has worked for me. And who knows, with your email address and birth date I might even send you an automated birthday message… courtesy of Address Book and Automator.

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#1 Jeff says:
And don’t forget the fact that you can sync it with every bluetooth enabled device that supports address book functionality. Everytime I change cellphones and phone companies, I never had to re-enter anything. I just sync it with my mac and go. I also have it synced with my ipod for when I need to look up an actual address and am not near a computer. For me that’s reason enough to use it!
#2 Heather says:
I too, love Address book. It’s so easy to use. Thanks for the great plug-ins.

On a similar note, since you brought it up, I’ve used Quicksilver, but not nearly to its full potential. Are there any good guides out there for it?
#3 george says:
You don’t have to format all phone numbers in your address book with the ” 1″ to dial with Skype. There is a preference in Skype :”For numbers without country code use:” Just set this to ” 1″.
#4 Phil Bowell says:
I have utilised address book ever since I switched to Mac just over 2 years ago. It’s superb. I may have to check out the Plaxo thing you mentioned. Thanks for that one!
#5 mpmchugh says:
Plaxo is great.

Butler is also a great way to access your contacts via the keyboard. I prefer it to Quicksilver.

http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?section=butler

Also, there’s a great Apple Addressbook Dashboard Widget.
#6 Frank says:
One more thing — Printing! Address Book has surprisingly robust support for printing on envelopes and Avery mailing labels. Remember that when it’s time to send out those Christmas cards!
#7 mhz says:
Autofill in Safari?

Quick sync with iPod?
#8 Paul says:
Jason, if your parents names are Richard and Tamiree, and they live in Austin, TX, you didn’t do a very thorough job of changing their number.
#9 Robert says:
Much love have I for the Address Book app. Clean, simple, fast (not perfect, mind you, but every carpet must have it’s bad stitch…), and with Quicksilver just dead easy to access.
#10 Daniel Wilson says:
Include among these an amazing feature in chax (an ichat plugin) that allows you to use “nicknames” in the address book as people’s names in ichat. This makes your buddy list much more logical and visually appealing.
#11 beefjerkey says:
TapDex is also a really good app. i think it is made by the Sizzling Keys guys…
#12 Hayssam Zakaria says:
Yes, I like Address Book, too. It’s integration into the system accessible by any app is great. Try typing a name into voodoopad for example. Some mobile phones even allow dialing and sms sending/ receiving through Address Book. Just not mine, here Apple could really support some more phones. And it seems that Apple is opening the iCal format in 10.5, so I guess we can hope for some niceties there also.
#13 jo jo the dancer says:
beefjerky is right, TapDex is awesome and free at http://www.yellowmug.com/tapdex/
#14 Peyton says:
Also with envelopes, Ambrosia makes a nice Dashboard Widget that will print envelopes, pulling address information from the Address Book.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/easyenvelopes/
#15 Paul says:
One of the neatest features with the Address Book is the ability to quickly identify which address groups a contact belongs to: simply highlight the contact and then press the option key and the the various groups it belongs to will be highlighted. This is extremely useful if you need to check quickly whether it belongs to the right group or not, say your mobile phone list. I really really wish iTunes had a similar function where you could check which playlists a song was in. What I also love is you can drop a contact onto a group numerous times but it won’t duplicate the contact in that group, unlike iTunes and playlists.
#16 Maarten Bennis says:
Did you guys check out BuddyPop? I love it. http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/buddypop/
#17 matthew says:
Very nice post.

Plaxo, and it’s model, is so the future. The integration of local and live-updated data is the best thing since dough met sauce and they met cheese.
#18 Milly says:
My methods may be a little long winded, but hey, I LOVE address book with my Bluetooth enabled phone (Sony Ericsson Wi600) It syncs my contacts effortlessly with some extra info to boot.

On Plaxo, I tried it for a while, but this post has me going to try it a second time. Thanks for the great post!
#19 Kevin says:
… and it synchronizes with Exchange Server! My colleagues often rely on my contact list, and being able to work with Exchange Server without help of Entourage (Microsoft Office) is a definite plus.
#20 Eytan says:
As you can see from the comments here, “Less and Less” is a misnomer. I find AddressBook to be one of the most useful apps on the Mac. I have all my contacts in there, synchronized with the web and other machines and my phone and iPod. I love it, and it works great. The bluetooth integration that allows you to dial your phone or send and receive SMS messages is amazing…
I love AddressBook.app
#21 allgood2 says:
I don’t use QuickSilver; but I get the same functionality from Address Book with Tynsoe’s Buddy Pop. As someone else mentioned, you forgot printing features. I know a lot of people don’t use them, but I also use the LDAP connectivity, so that I can search Address Books at Universities and Government Institution.

I also like, that Safari displays anyone who has a web address in it’s Address Book menu. Also, Address Book can be integrated with Eudora (if you don’t want to use Mail.app), Delicious Library, and other applications. Not to mention a .Mac account and iSync can make sure that you have all the same contacts on all your computers—since my home office has five computers, this is pretty important. Two of the laptops only get used for trips, so its important that the new clients address is just there, without too much thought.
#22 Robere says:
With Address Book 1.0, I enjoyed the autofill when filling in mailing address info. Now with AB 2 that seems to be disabled or at least I haven’t figured out how to get it back again. Anyone know? For terrible typists like myself its great when you don’t have to peck out ‘Wallingford’ or whatever, each time have to enter it.
#23 Dat's What's Up says:
I love address book. It works wonders with my Treo. It will sync with other phones also. For those of you needing a sync app for Motorola/Sony Ericsson phones check out Scott Bender’s Phone Sync. http://www.onmadesoft.com
Compatible with Address Book, Microsoft Entourage, Eudora, Now Contact and Palm Desktop.
Recognizes mobile phones connected to your Mac via: serial cable, usb (with the appropriate adapter),infrared and bluetooth.
Manages Greek, Russian and others non roman character sets.
Ready for Mac Intel computers. - With this app. a host of phones can use address book.
Just my 2 cents. (Yep I paid the shareware fee!)
#24 Eytan says:
Wallingford? I LIVE in Wallingford…
You can use Option-Escape after you typed the 1st character to bring up a choice of completion options.
#25 anon says:
You can press F5 to see completion choices in the card editor.
#26 Mark Scrimshire says:
Jason,

You are not alone. I find Address Book to be an invaluable tool. I have written some Applescripts that act as Address Book Plug-Ins. If you use Address Book and Google Calendar you need these scripts. They allow you to post a meeting or a call in to your Google Calendar using the information contained in a person record. More details and a link to the download site are in my blog at http://ekive.blogspot.com/2006/10/update-to-google-calendar-add.html
#27 Mark Scrimshire says:
You may also want to look at another blog of mine. I wrote a time/date stamp script which I have coupled with smart groups in Address Book.

Check out http://ekive.com/blog/2006/10/05/create-a-recent-activity-smart-group-in-address-book/
#28 Robere says:
Hey thanks for that.

You live in Wallingford? … as in the Seattle neighborhood, the town in Conneticut or the one in the UK?

Writing from Ballard here.
#29 Jason Guthrie says:
Wow! Thanks for all the responses! You have mentioned some great Address Book features and add-ons that I’ve never tried and/or heard about. There’s almost enough to write a second post! And I’m going to have a great time trying them all. Long live Address Book!
#30 Eytan says:
Yeah, as in the Seattle neighborhood….
Writing from Wallingford here (was writing from Bothel when I was at work…)
#31 Aurelio Marinho Jargas says:
And the excellent Adium IM (www.adiumx.com) has a nice Address Book integration, getting the full names or nicknames for your buddies from AB. No more cryptic names on your contact list…
#32 D says:
Until Thunderbird and/or GMail can either sync with Address Book I have no use for it. Maybe I’m missing something, though.
#33 Derek says:
@ Paul (#15)
Pick any song in your iTunes library and ctrl click on it. In the contextual menu there will be a “Show in Playlist” selection. Hover over it and voila, you have your list of every other playlist where your song is found. And if you find that a song is not in a playlist you want it to be, then just go to “Add to Playlist” right above. Your welcome. Namaste.
#34 Malcolm Cooke says:
Address book is great
use You Control and all the iCal stuff and Address Book data is there without opening Address book You Control will send the email of the contact to mail or flash up the phone no on the screen in large letters etc really integrated into the system. a bonus is all the other stuff with one click
#35 matt says:
I like AB, but I can never get it to sync any info beyond phone and emails with my motorola slvr. I enter, say, a full address ineither AB or in the phone, hit sync… and it doesn’t transfer. yet syncing phone and email is simple.

I have OSX 10.4.8 and a motorola Slvr L7 (maybe L6).
#36 Chuck Cheeze says:
The biggest headache in AB is adding more numbers, emails, etc. Click, type, click, type, etc. Do yourselves a favor and download AddressBookQuickEntry for 1000% easier entering of contacts. SUCH a TIMESAVER.
#37 Jonathan says:
Don’t forget - just glorious two-way syncing with a PDA (Palm or Windoze Mobile) via Missing Sync (www.markspace.com).

J.
#38 modalspace says:
Lest not forget the glorious ABKey plugin for the more security aware of us: It integrates AB with Mail.app, GPGMail and gnupg. It allows you to manage your GPG keys from within AB and to set preferences for sending encrypted/signed messages.
#39 David A says:
I would not recommend using Plaxo to any people I know that have PC’s. It might not matter to us lucky Mac users but for a PC user they are going to have so much trouble with Plaxo as it is stuffed to the gills with SPYWARE.
I would avoid Plaxo completely
#40 Gerard Byrne says:
I use address book to sync/backup (via bluetooth) my Sony Ericsson P910i contacts. I also keep a copy of the contacts on my iPod (so far so good).

However, I hate the GUI in Address Book. Cmd N does not create a new “Address Card”. The “categories” in P910i do not correspond to anything in AB. AB is a sub-standard app.
#41 fab1An says:
In addition to #31:
Adium uses the addressbook to cumulate multiple IM-IDs from the same user so it displays the name only once. Great feature and addressbook integration.
#42 Paul says:
There’s a great little program called “GeburtstagChecker” (http://www.earthlingsoft.net/) which will look at all the birthdays that are entered in Address Book and display in a little window when they are coming up. You wouldn’t believe how many “brownie points” you get for remembering people’s birthdays!!! And it’s free.
#43 Alex says:
What I would really LOVE to see is a way of changing the name of the field. I.E., instead of “Company,” Address Book should let me change it to whatever. I’m an attorney, I’d prefer “Company” to be a reference instead telling me what kind of client it is. That way, when I sync it with my Treo, it’s easier to figure who they are or letting me sort them. Any thoughts?
#44 mark says:
these folks seem to have the right idea:

http://www.objective-decision.com/en/products/contactizerpro/

this seems to be (a) what i wish address book and ical were and (b) what now up-to-date and contact should have become, by now, but probably never will.

i wish apple would make both address book and ical more robust, like this.
#45 Joseph Crawford says:
The only thing keeping me from using Address Book, Mail, etc is the fact that Mail cannot send HTML messages. I know it can recieve them however trying to send one i have found to be impossible. I am using Entourage but would prefer to use Mail.

Maybe once Leopard is released i will make the switch as you can use HTML emails in that version of Mail.
#46 Jay says:
I love the AB but one thing i’m missing is a text export of the complete address details. Let’s say someone asks you to send the contact details of someone in your AB. Sure, you could just send the vcf file, but some non techs will not know what to do with it, so its better just to send it as plain text in an email. If i cut/paste the complete entry, the formatting is all screwed up and i have to correct by hand. Any ideas ?? Thanks !
#47 Shaun says:
Yep, Address Book is a handy tool (have they fixed syncing smart groups via .Mac yet?). On a related note regarding Plaxo, there’s a video of Steve Jobs demoing NeXTSTEP 3.o on You Tube, where one of the features mentioned is “live data” (in the example, a graphic created by a coworker, and saved on that coworker’s machine is inserted into a pub Steve creates, and when the original is updated, it auto updates in Steve’s pub in real-time). Apple clearly has been mining the old NeXT attic with OSX (check out that video for proof, including the layout for Address Book!), and I wonder if this is on their radar screens? I know I love the idea behind Plaxo, but am hesitant to send my private data “out there” where I can’t know what kind of security is in place. It would be nice to get this kind of collaborative data sharing going in a big way, built in to OS X, and leveraged across many apps.
#48 Dennis says:
Anyone interested in a Quicksilver-like app for accessing Address Book should also check out LaunchBar. Not only does it do everything that Quicksilver does with Address Book, but it also creates smart groups for all companies, job titles, email addresses, and phone numbers in your Address Book. This allows you to do searches across only email addresses or only companies, for example. On top of that, all your Address Book groups (including Smart Groups) show up in LaunchBar as well. Very handy!
#49 Ben says:
I downloaded the Googe Map plug-in and nothing happened. Google Maps shows nothing and Address Book shows nothing.

What did I do wrong?

BG
#50 Barry says:
To Alex #43:

Select the “Custom” label in the drop down list and then enter whatever label you would like.

Just note, that if you sync with a cell or PDA, your custom labels may not sync across properly.
#51 Matte says:
Mac OS X is wonderfull! From easy thing like Address Book to the rich features of a UNIX OS.

Tnx for the Google Maps plugin… It’s fabulous!
#52 Sandy says:
Like the connectivity of AB but hate that I can’t keep a family together on one card. Would like to have a photo, e-mail, cell phone, and b-day for individuals in a family but have them all on the same card. Would be nice for printing out a team roster, or phone list. Right now, I have to have a seperate card for each kid and spouse. Unless I’m missing something?
#53 Brian says:
There is also a great Vonage script that I used with Address Book that allows me to select a number and choose “Call”. It then tells Vonage to make a call to the selected number and route it to my phone. All I have to do is click the number and pick up the phone, no dialling involved.

You can download the script here http://www.abfconsulting.com/vonage/Dial-with-Vonage.sit

Or read more here http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040317010729892
#54 Rault says:
I love AddressBook as well, for its invisibility! It holds everything so nicely and never gets in your way until you beckon it forth.

My favorite add-on works like QuickSilver; it’s called iAddressX, by MibaSoft (www.mibasoft.com) for $8. Works flawlessly.
#55 Rault says:
I love Address Book too, for its invisibility.

My favorite add-on is iAddressX, by MibaSoft. Works like JABmenu; only $8. Works flawlessly.
#56 Didier says:
Ther is also a Filemaker plugin to link Filemaker to the address book (and back).

http://www.productivecomputing.com/

The Address Book Manipulator plug-in provides a lightning fast two-way data exchange between FileMaker Pro and Apple’s Address Book.
#57 Shawn Blanc says:
Nice evangelism for address book. I use the app very regularly.

I primarily use address book for group e-mail lists, printing newsletter lables, and then sending e-mails to all those folks that will be getting the snail mail newsletter with the automator actions.
#58 Q says:
If your phone supports phonebook sync with Mac OS X over bluetooth, you can have Address Book display the name and number of the person calling you when your bluetooth phone rings. Most Sony Ericsson phones have this feature. It’s really cool.
#59 Petros says:
I use Address Book to maintain a local image of all the contacts in my phone. It would, however be much userful if I could use the same set of information in Thunderbird. Unfortunately that’s actually thunderbird’s fault for not using a more modular address book system.
#60 Jeff says:
anyone know how to get Address Book to print the contact name and the company name at the same time?
#61 Gerard van Schip says:
I agree, Address book is very cool, I use it daily but one thing bugs me… Not being able to sync to Thunderbird. Yes you read that right. I can’t stand Apple’s mail client, way to simple and a pain in the butt if you have several email accounts.
#62 PD says:
i want a duplicate checker in Address Book…
#63 scott hampton says:
PD - there is a duplicates check: Card — Duplicate Entries

I use address book a lot, keeps the Nokia synced easily.

BUT: WHY isn’t there a way to get the letters of the alphabet as tabs on the side. I have an engineer’s memory for names, and am constantly playing the “OK, that lawyer’s name… started with an A? Oh, hell, what was the company? Stern something?” It would be nice to be able to jump quickly instead of relying on search!
#64 Daniel says:
To Jason or other address book users:

Is there a way within Address Book or via another associated application to duplicate an Address Book Card without having to tediously cut and paste the various fields? I use Address Book for contact management and there are occassions where I would like to repeat the same card within different Groups. Thanks
#65 Sally says:
#64 just select the card and then EDIT / COPY
or.. read the manual Daniel

here’s one that’s NOT IN THE MANUAL

who knows how to FIND all cards (contacts)
from a specific country?

who knows how to create a smartGROUP that lists all cards with an address in DE (DE is the abbreviation for Germany similar to USA for United States of …)

issue:
if some of the addresses have an incorrect country name (abbreviation instead of full country name)
there is no simple way to fix it today
unless… you know of one
#66 ben says:
and if you want it to keep the apple addressbook in sync with gmail, try abgmerge . . . here is a little write up. http://www.hawkwings.net/2006/12/03/abgmerge-sync-gmail-and-address-book-contacts/
#67 Jim Bates says:
Greetings:

I am looking for some way to unlock custom fields in Apple’s Address Book. Since you’re Address Book LDAP is so popular, I figured you’re familiar with programming, or changing, AB.

I know that Address Book, or at least Sync Services, keeps track of Custom Fields, because they appear in other apps.

I know Apple has Custom fields listed in their Contacts Schema (http://developer.apple.com/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SyncServicesSchemaRef/Articles/Contacts.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40001541-209998).

But in Address Book>Preferences>Template>there is no “Custom” Field, not even grayed out.

Address Book’s existing Relationship fields just won’t cut it.

Who can help me get Address Book to show the existing Custom fields that are already there, but hidden?

Thanks,

Jim
#68 Jessica says:
I saved my address data file on an external drive. I’m trying to retrieve the data from another computer but can’t seem to get the data into that computer’s address book. How do I do this??
#69 Sylvester says:
I was cruising the web looking for more AB actions for Automator when I stumbled on this page. Imagine my surprise to discover my Birthday Greetings article mentioned. The more I use AB the more I like it.

Now what can I think of next?
#70 Sylvester says:
Jay (#47) I think I have successfully modified part of my Birthday Greeting project to send contact information via email. If you will email me I can send a sample of the output to see if it meets your needs

slydude at gmail.com
#71 Jim says:
I just got a Motorola Razr and am extremely dissappointed that it doesn’t sync with address book. I had a Nokia and it worked great. I loved being able to send SMS messages through my phone. Apparently Motorola is pisses about the whole iPhone thing. That and the fact that Apple switched to Intel chips. Does anyone know of a plugin or hack?
#72 Vladimir Campos says:
I love AB, but am using it less and less because I can’t sync it to Google Contacts.
#73 Sylvester says:
I haven’t tried this but there apparently is a way to see Google Contacts in AB. It’s a one way deal though, you can’t edit them. The tip is at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200703080908446&query=google%2Bcontacts
#74 Matthew Cornell says:
Thanks for the post. I’m a new mac user, and I find Address Book frustratingly close to the usable/unusable line. I ranted a bit about it here.

Also, I wish the Quicksilver plugin for AB supported creating a new contact based on text. Auto-recognition of emails, addresses, and phone numbers (like what the new Mail.app tries to do) would be *awesome*.

Thanks for the post.
#75 zukeeper says:
I love AB too. Really, I do.
The main irritant however, is it’s inability to make template changes apply to existing entries. I’m always tweaking the template, adding additional custom fields. I’d love to have the changes I make to the template be available to existing contacts. For some reason, they only seem to show up when I’m making a new entry. This drives me nuts. for example, I’ve added a Flickr url field last week. Today, my friend Bob shared his Flickr site with me, and I’d like to add that to his AB entry. However, when I’m in edit mode, the Flickr field won’t show up. Seems I only have one chance to have it available, and if that field is left blank, you have to manually enter it as a custom field when you want to edit the contact later. This needs a fix. Or is there one? Anyone?