User level: Level 1 (31 points)Keep some Contacts only on my Mac
In Notes, you can have notes that are only on the Mac, not in iCloud.
Can you do the same with Contacts?
and with Reminders?
There are certain things I'd rather not have splattered across iCloud and keep them privately only on my Mac which never leaves the house.
Thanks anyone.
MacBook Pro M5 2025
Golden Gate 27.0.1
Posted on Oct 31, 2026 11:56 AM
User level: Level 10 (125,838 points)Oct 31, 2026 5:35 PM in response to tetters
You can do that with Contacts, but it’s been a while since I tried. I think if you disable contacts in iCloud, it will enable a local account. It should ask if you want to keep the contacts.
I’m not sure if that is possible in Reminders. Reminders is tied to Calendars. If you disabled Calendar in iCloud, that might unlink Reminders, too.
User level: Level 1 (31 points)Nov 1, 2026 9:27 AM in response to Barney-15E
Thanks Barney,
Looks like if I disable Contacts in iCloud on my Mac then I'll not see my iCloud contacts, only those I keep locally on my Mac?
I just thought that as you can have both iCloud Notes and Notes on my Mac all seen together when you open Notes, how nice it would be to be able to do the same with Contacts.
I'd love to have my Bookmarks separated too, so I have them all available to view but I only see my Mac-only Bookmarks when on my Mac, and likewise I don't see my Mac-only Bookmarks when on iCloud with my iPhone. At present I have a text-edit document on my Mac hard-drive containing my Mac-only Bookmarks (with a link to it in my Favorites) but it's pretty unwieldy.
Thanks anyway for taking the time!
User level: Level 10 (125,838 points)Nov 1, 2026 4:25 PM in response to tetters
I just thought that as you can have both iCloud Notes and Notes on my Mac all seen together when you open Notes, how nice it would be to be able to do the same with Contacts.
Once you have a local "ON MY MAC" contacts account, you can turn iCloud Contacts back on. Just don't merge them or you will have duplicates. I think I used to do that to move old, unused contacts off of iCloud. I didn't keep it up, though. In Calendar, if you had the separate holidays and birthdays section, you could ctrl-click in that section to create a new calendar which would be ON MY MAC. It wasn't that simple in Contacts, but there may be a way.
I'd love to have my Bookmarks separated too, so I have them all available to view but I only see my Mac-only Bookmarks when on my Mac, and likewise I don't see my Mac-only Bookmarks when on iCloud with my iPhone. At present I have a text-edit document on my Mac hard-drive containing my Mac-only Bookmarks (with a link to it in my Favorites) but it's pretty unwieldy.
I think you could create a separate file with those bookmarks (.html) and open them in a browser window.
Maybe set up a Bookmark to your Local Bookmarks.html.
Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256386580