Moving contacts between accounts without losing notes

You are leaving a job and want your professional contacts out of the Exchange account. Or you are consolidating Google contacts into iCloud. Or moving everything off "On My Mac" so it syncs to your phone.

The names, numbers and emails usually come across. The Notes field is the one that goes missing — and it is often the most valuable part of the card, because it holds everything you know about the person that does not fit anywhere else.

Why Notes are fragile

Three separate reasons, and a migration can hit any of them.

Apps need special permission to read Notes. On Apple platforms, an app that asks for access to your contacts gets names, numbers, addresses and so on. The Notes field is protected separately: Apple grants access to it only to apps it has specifically approved. A migration or backup app that lacks that approval simply cannot see notes — and will usually copy everything else without saying so.

Export settings may exclude them. In Contacts, Settings → vCard → Export notes in vCards decides whether a vCard export includes Notes. If it is off, the exported file has no notes to import.

Account types handle Notes differently. iCloud, Google, Exchange and other CardDAV servers do not all store or sync the Notes field in the same way, particularly for long notes or special formatting. A note that exists in one account may not survive the round trip into another.

How moving between accounts works in Contacts

Contacts on the Mac has no Move command. Dragging a card from one account onto another account's group copies it. You then delete the original yourself.

That sounds like a disadvantage, but it is the safe way round: the original stays intact until you have checked the copy.

A migration routine

1. Back up everything. File → Export → Contacts Archive… This preserves every account's cards, including notes, in a form Contacts can restore. Do this before anything else.

2. Measure what you have. Select the source account in the sidebar and note how many cards it holds. Then count how many have notes. A Smart Group with a rule on the Note field — or a search, if your version supports it — gives you a rough number. You need a before-count to compare with.

3. Decide the method.

• Drag and drop in Contacts: copies cards directly between accounts on the same Mac. The simplest option for moving into iCloud, and the one most likely to carry notes, since Contacts itself does the copying.
• Export vCard and import: needed when the destination is on another device or service. Turn on Export notes in vCards first.
• A third-party migration app: check explicitly that it states Notes support. If it does not mention Notes, assume it cannot read them.

4. Copy a small sample first. Move five contacts, including a couple with long notes. Check the notes on the destination account on the Mac, then on your iPhone after it has synced. Only then move the rest.

5. Compare counts. After the move, count cards and notes in the destination. Differences should be explainable — duplicates merged, junk skipped — not mysterious.

6. Leave the source alone for a while. Do not delete the originals immediately. Wait a week of normal use. If something turns out to be missing, the originals are still there.

Leaving a work account

Two extra considerations:

Only take what is yours to take. Your employer's customer contacts may be company data, subject to policy or contract. Personal contacts that ended up in the work account are a different matter. Check before copying in bulk.

Deleting from Exchange deletes everywhere. Removing cards from the work account removes them from your work phone and possibly from shared systems. Usually you want to copy out and leave the source untouched.

After the move

Set Contacts → Settings → General → Default account to the account you moved to. Otherwise new contacts keep being created in the old one.

What Compact Contacts changes

Compact Contacts is approved to work with contact Notes: it reads and edits long notes, and can include them in an on-device search index if you choose. That makes it a way to see notes across a whole account at once, rather than opening cards one at a time — which is exactly the check a migration needs.

Merging is field by field, and you choose the destination account for the merged card, so consolidating duplicates from two accounts into one lets you decide which note survives. Merge history is kept encrypted on your Mac and supports undo.

Exports preview what you are about to write as CSV or vCard. Notes are excluded by default and included by an explicit choice for each export — the safe setting for sharing, and one you change deliberately when migrating. Imports show which cards are ready, which have warnings and which are blocked before anything is written.

Nothing goes to a developer server. macOS continues to handle synchronisation for your accounts.