How to change phone labels in Address Book?

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

I need to change all the phone numbers with “Work Mobile” to plain “Mobile” in my Address Book. I am guessing there is a way to do this with Applescript, and so this will be my first project.:stuck_out_tongue: Needless to say, I am a newbie. The reason I need to do this is due to the way Plaxo syncs my contacts with Outlook on my pc. Thanks in advance…

#2

Rushing to work. But you can start with this to help in your project.

I SUGGEST YOU BACKUP YOUR ADDRESS BOOK FIRST BEFORE PLAYING WITH CHANGING LABELS.

if you do not you may find you have some undesired results that will be Very hard to change back.
i.e all Phone Labels getting changed.

This snippet works on the entry/s selected.
It will change the first Phone number to Mobile.
what you need to do is get it to select the “Work Mobile” regardless of its position.

tell application "Address Book"
	
	set theentry to selection
	
	repeat with i from 1 to number of items in theentry
		set this_item2 to item i of theentry
		
		set label of phone 1 of this_item2 to "Mobile"
		save addressbook
	end repeat
end tell
#3

Hi,

I had this script lying around. I’d second Mark Hunte’s suggestion of backing up before doing something like this.

set theOld to "MYold" -- label to replace
set theNew to "MYnew" -- new label

tell application "Address Book"
	--to mark time taken
	set startTime to (current date)
	-- get people whose phone labels contain the old term
	set thePeople to (get every person whose label of phones contains theOld)
	-- loop through these people
	repeat with aPerson in thePeople
		-- loop through phone entries with the old term
		repeat with myPhone in (phones of aPerson whose label is equal to theOld)
			-- set the label to the new label
			set the label of myPhone to theNew
		end repeat
	end repeat
	-- to refresh
	save addressbook
	-- to mark time taken
	set takenTime to (current date) - startTime
	-- display confirmation
	display dialog "All \"" & theOld & "\" changed to \"" & theNew & "\"," & return & (count thePeople) & " records changed," & return & "in " & takenTime & " seconds." as string buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end tell

Best wishes

John M