TMO Quick Tip - Address Book: Selectively Hiding Your vCard Info

by , 7:30 AM EDT, July 25th, 2008

Apple's Address Book lets you turn your personal information into a vCard that can be shared with others. If your vCard holds data that you would rather not share, like private phone numbers and email addresses, Address Book can help out there, too.

If you don't already have a vCard set with your contact information in Address Book, just select the entry that contains the info you want to share, and then select Card > Make This My Card.

To keep information that's in your vCard private, do this:

• Choose Address Book > Preferences.
• Select the vCard tab.
• Check Enable private me card.
• Close the Preferences window.

You can hide vCard fields after enabling this preference.

Now select your vCard and click the Edit button. Uncheck the fields you don't want to share. For example, I unchecked personal email addresses that I want to keep private, phone numbers that I don't want to share, and my home address.

Uncheck the fields you want to keep private.

To share your vCard, first select your contact card in Address Book, and then choose File > Export > Export vCard. You can now email your vCard -- sans private information -- to anyone and they can import it into their contact management application.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

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