How do I locate the contact data for the Address Book on Snow Leopard?

Question

How do I locate the contact data for the Address Book in the hard drive on Snow Leopard?

Answer 1

The data is stored in several places. It's best to just export the data to the desktop if you want it in one file.

The complicated answer is in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook as well as in various cache files if you have enabled LDAP/open directory integration or other sync options to get contacts into and out of your address book.

Answer 2

Should be ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/

If you hit File -> Export... -> Address Book Archive you can create a backup. The resulting Addressbook - <date>.abbu file (which is actually a folder) actually just contains the contents of the abovementioned location.