PSA: Apple is Removing Facebook Contact Sync From macOS

Redditor u/nindustrie found that Apple removed Facebook Contact Sync from macOS. An Apple engineer responded to the user’s bug report, saying that sync is now gone. It was also removed from the iPhone in iOS 11.

Facebook Contact Sync is removed from macOS as detailed in this bug report.

Facebook Contact Sync

If you use Messenger and allow it to upload your contacts, they will still be synced to the service. But system-level Facebook (and Twitter) integration is gone from iOS. On the Mac, when you open System Preferences > Internet Accounts, you can add Facebook and other accounts.

Facebook Contact Sync and calendar sync in macOS System Preferences.

Adding Facebook will sync your contacts, calendar, and other information. If syncing is now removed, then I wonder if Apple will end up removing Facebook from Internet Accounts.

5 thoughts on “PSA: Apple is Removing Facebook Contact Sync From macOS

  • Shoot, after my Mohave install I received this message about removing the Facebook contacts. I accidentally just allowed it to save the contacts in my iCloud. Now all my Facebook friends are in my iCloud, Contacts, Calendar…etc. How do I find the most recently added contacts and delete them from iCloud?

    Thanks!

  • Never used any of this stuff, so I won’t miss it.

    Ah, Ping, hahahahahah! I really should have tried it out during its brief lifetime.

    On iOS I believe Apple replaced service-specific integrations (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) with generic “share extensions” that any app can provide.

  • I applaud the move. Anything that pushes Facebook further out of the picture can only be a good thing. This must go all the way back to Ping, which relied on Facebook for its success. Facebook pulled out, Ping died and Apple still went and integrated Facebook at the system level. If Apple can integrate Ping into the business version of Messages, there might be hope… yeh, I’m joking.

    I do however know a lot of iPhone owners who don’t know the difference between Messenger and Messages, much less where their Contacts are synced from. I can see the unifying experience of the previous arrangement, with no knowledge required.

    Maybe once they get a Facebook cylinder, they won’t even use their iPhone.

  • Hurrah. I thought it was beyond foolish and very un-Apple like to enable this functionality in the first place. I won’t miss it, not one bit. Apple have really stepped up on the privacy game, and it’ll keep me coming back to them in spite of my generally negative feelings about most of the rest of their endeavors of late.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.