For macOS
Open .abbu contact archives and AddressBook folders, look inside, and extract contacts as vCard or CSV without overwriting existing contacts.
Open .abbu contact archives without overwriting your contacts
ABBU Restore opens contact archives (.abbu) and AddressBook folders, the kind that turn up in old backups and on Time Machine volumes. You can inspect the contents first and then export the contacts you want as vCard or CSV files, either the whole archive or any part of it.
Apple’s Contacts app always replaces all existing contacts and accounts when you restore an .abbu archive. ABBU Restore never does that. It opens the archive and you export a single contact, a group, an account, or everything at once. Your own contacts in Apple Contacts stay untouched.
Features
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert an .abbu file to CSV or Excel?
Open the archive in ABBU Restore and export as CSV, one column per field and label, ready for Excel or Numbers. That is one step, and the job is done.
The route most converter tools describe is longer: restore the .abbu into Apple’s Contacts first, export vCards from there, then convert those with their tool. The first step carries a risk. Restoring an archive makes Contacts replace all existing contacts and accounts, so you would give up your current contacts to reach old ones. ABBU Restore reads the archive in place and never touches your contacts.
What happens if I restore an .abbu archive with Apple’s Contacts app?
Apple’s Contacts app always replaces all existing contacts and accounts with the contents of the archive. There is no partial restore. ABBU Restore opens the archive alongside your contacts instead: you inspect it first, then extract a single contact, a group, an account, or the whole archive. Your current contacts are never touched, and the archive itself is never modified or deleted.
The usual way around this is a second macOS user account: it holds no contacts, so the restore has nothing of yours to overwrite. That works, but it takes admin rights and a throwaway account, set up and cleared away again for one look inside an archive. And it only shields you while that account stays empty. Sign it in with your own Apple Account and Contacts turned on, and the restore replaces your real Contacts on every device.
Which files can it open?
.abbu contact archives, whether they hold one contact database or several sources, and AddressBook folders from a Library folder. That folder is the form in which Apple’s Contacts app stores its data on disk. Both are found in old backups and on Time Machine volumes.
How old can the backup be?
ABBU Restore has been tested with contact databases from Mac OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.10 through to current macOS, including archives holding more than 12,000 contacts.
What is preserved in the export?
vCard 3.0 files are written with Apple’s extensions, so photos, notes, phonetic names, and custom labels are preserved. CSV files are written for spreadsheets, with one column per field and label. Contact photos are exported if the backup holds them locally. Photos that only ever lived in iCloud and were never part of the local backup cannot be recovered from it.
Do I have to pay to inspect an archive?
No. You can open archives, browse their accounts and groups, and keep an overview of what is in them, all for free and with no time limit. A sample archive is included and can always be exported, so you can try exporting. The first contacts (currently 20) can be read in full; past that the values in the detail view stay covered, while the name and structure of the record remain visible. Exporting your own archives is unlocked by an in-app purchase that runs for one year and does not renew automatically.