NextCloud: unusable CardDAV-Sync with contact groups

Hello,
Address management is essential for the productive use of my NextCloud. Currently, 85 contact groups with several thousand addresses are still managed in iCloud.
A migration to NC fails because a synchronization between NC and macOS is not possible natively, at best only using Thunderbird.

Completely impossible is the synchronization with iOS devices! Synchronization between NC and iOS is only possible as a flat list of all contacts, without any structuring. However, working with thousands of contacts on the iPhone/iPad in a flat list is unreasonable.

I’m pretty sure this has been a problem since forever and never became a seriously pursued development goal by NC developers.

So I think the question of how to make it work with NC is pointless, it just doesn’t seem to work. I can shake my head and have incomprehension all I want, the only way I don’t have to bury my hard-won NC project is to find an alternative contact management on the Nethserver that syncs cleanly with macOS, iOS and Windows clients. That’s the minimum requirement.

It makes sense that the NC calendar should also be able to access these addresses, so that it is possible to send invitations to appointments.

So my question, has anyone ever found a stable solution for this?

Sincerely, Marko

Maybe a “MacOS” into topic title could help… :wink:
Did you consider to “knock” on Apple about standard compatibility?

It almost seems obvious that Apple’s management support is a probable cause. But I didn’t want to digress into speculations and polemics.
Since I’m not Don Quixote either, I’d rather ask myself (and you) if there was an alternative that might work after all.

I just can’t imagine anyone seriously using NC/CardDAV anywhere productively under these circumstances.

Apart from that, I would have expected a stop sign on the NC side somewhere, “Don’t start an NC project if you rely on CardDAV”. That would have prevented a lot of useless effort and saved a lot of money. And above all it would be beneficial to the reputation of NC, since the alleged culprit (Apple) would be identifiable from the outset. Currently, it is only a reputational damage for NC, since the impression exists that no one cares about the issue, analyzes it and proves the causer reliably. Only with proof do you have a chance against Apple, if at all.
But that’s ultimately a trivial opinion of mine that doesn’t bring me any closer to a solution.

So here’s the question again, has anyone ever managed a working synchronization with iOS with another piece of software on the server?


Have you ever take a read?
IMVHO the “issue” is among application (NextCloud) and OS (MacOS) therefore… maybe NC community should be the “primary” source for information, IMVHO.
The “personalization” about NextCloud on NethServer is about login and “source” of login. And the placement of DB and files.
(If I am not completely wrong…)

I can understand why you don’t want to argue with Apple (quite close to arguing with a fool for me). But… if not even Apple users are telling the company “please do that way”, why should even Cupertino bother about application world requests?

I do not have Apple Hardware, therefore i cannot use it for any test. But anyway… if you find something interesting you can still help the community to bring closer to a solution…

I’m sure apple knows the problem: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6612054

Persuaded …I opened a question: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252785460

Wish you best possible (Applish) luck

I hope, anybody here has a better alternate to manage and synchronize contacts on Nethsever.