Contacts app - How to backup/export full addressbook?

🍱 Features & apps
1

Hello,

some days ago I migrated my clouds to nextcloud and it works pretty well.
After first days of enthusiam my thoughts got clear again and I thought about backup.
Files > ok.
DB > ok.
Calendar export > ok.

But how to export my addressbooks? Maybe I am blind and did not see the download button?

Running Nextcloud 11 and contacts app v1.5.2

Please be patient with me. I am tired, new to nextcloud and expecting rock solid, stable, reliable software for free :slight_smile:

Appreciate any comment.

Cheers

2 Likes
2

Have you tried this fix?

3

Oh, ok.

This time I took convenient way just by using forums not searching github.

WIll try this later that night and respond at github and here.

Cheers!

5

Aren’t contacts as well as calendar included in the database? So if you do a database backup (e.g. automated using OwnBackup) there should be always the possibility to restore it by the related db tables.

Or am I wrong? In this case I would also need to extend my backup routine ;).

6

You are right, data is included in db backup.
But I would like to have it plain as ics and vcs files.
Easily to load any backup and check for lost contacts :slight_smile:

7

Ah I understand, so you are actually talking about an export of all contacts together. It is possible to export/download a single contact as .vcf by selecting it and choose the download bottom at the top right. But ya it’s not possible to download the whole list nor select all contacts together and download then. That ability would be nice :).

8

Got a few hundred contacts and exporting single one is not really an option.
The export function was possible in older app versions. Same as for calendars.
Did that normally using cron. Let’s see what is possible in the future again.

9

Hello,
i export my contacts that way:

!/bin/bash
MONAT=`date +%m`
DATZEIT=`date +%d%H%M`
TAG=`date +%d`
ZEIT=`date +%d.%m.%y__%T`
echo ">>>  $ZEIT buvcf START" >> /media/bu/mountbu.log
UP_J=USER:PASSWORD
OF_J=/media/bu/card/js/$MONAT
mkdir -p $OF_J
ADR_J=https://XXX.de/owncloud/remote.php/carddav/addressbooks/USER/
#Joachims AdressbĂĽcher
declare -a array=(joachim)
for i in ${array[@]}
	do
curl -u $UP_J $ADR_J$i?export > $OF_J/$i$DATZEIT.vcf
done
ZEIT=`date +%d.%m.%y__%T`
echo "<<<  $ZEIT buvcf ENDE" >> /media/bu/mountbu.log
1 Like
10

Just tried the fix.

My export dialog looks like:

As soon as I download I got a white screen.
Is it working for you?

Nextcloud version 11.
Contacts app version 1.5.2

11

/OTON

rakekniven! :relaxed:

/OTOFF

12

I’m doing this with Thunderbird or Evolution.

13

Does OT means Off Topic?

14

I’d like to know why the functionality was removed? Nextcloud was forked from OwnCloud and the functionality was there when the fork was done. OwnCloud still maintains this functionality.

I too was looking to backup my information and prefer an easy way to export all my contacts as VCF. I should not have to depend on some convoluted external tool or script.

I was seriously considering switching from OwnCloud to Nextcloud, but I’m sticking with OwnCloud at least until this functionality is made available again.

15

Wait for next app release. Function was not removed as feature.
Contacts app of nextcloud has a maintainer and still receives features and fixes.

As a workaround I export my adressbook on my Mac using OS X addressbook and that works well at the moment.

16

Hi - Not sure if this will help or not, but here’s how I backup my contacts and get them from VCF to CSV:

This will take the large VCF file and make it into a CSV, for import into Excel, etc. I have only used it with Excel though.

mp/m

17

A little bit easier for unschedulded action.

https://nextcloud.[DOMAIN].[TLD]/remote.php/dav/addressbooks/users/[USERNAME]/contacts?export

3 Likes
18

Topic is how to get my contacts out of Nextcloud as vcf.
Nice you showing me how to move them into Excel from VCF :confused:

19

Hey, you made my day. It works pretty well.

As a german user my UI language is german as well and just discovered that your solutions has to be localized for me :slight_smile:

https://nextcloud.[DOMAIN].[TLD]/remote.php/dav/addressbooks/users/[USERNAME]/contacts?export does not work.

But https://nextcloud.[DOMAIN].[TLD]/remote.php/dav/addressbooks/users/[USERNAME]/kontakte?export does.

Anyway thumbs up!

Update: Using curl command in my crontab now. Works pretty well.

1 Like
20

Thanks, you save me lot of headache as “categories” is mandatory for me and Thunderbird exports discard it !

21

This is fixed with v1.5.3 now.

Unfortunately, there’s no changelog.

@Mods: Please, can you move this topic in the contacts category? Thanks!

1 Like