How to delete duplicate contacts

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Level 1

8 points

How to delete duplicate contacts

Ever since my company migrated everyone to using Outlook 365 and prohibited the use of the native email app, all my contacts seem to be multiplying exponentially. I've toggled off and on "Save Contacts" in Outlook but when it suggests it's deleting contacts from the phone, it never does the full job. I have as many as 35 duplicates of a contact with at least 15 of all others. My contact list has gone from around 800 to 24,000. I also added iCloud to Outlook so I could have our families shared calendar in Outlook. I do not have the "Save Contacts" toggled on within the Outlook app for the iCloud account.

Someone... please help me get rid of all the duplicates without having to go through and manually clean each and every one of the 24,000 up individually.

iPhone X, iOS 14

Posted on Jan 25, 2021 7:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

askbarnabas

Level 10

103,545 points

Jan 25, 2021 9:08 AM in response to sirjuul

Go to this link - Hide duplicate contacts on iPhone

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Answer 2

sirjuul Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 25, 2021 9:54 AM in response to askbarnabas

Unfortunately, this only helps if you have a limited number of contacts that are duplicated only once since it's a contact by contact solution. Or, if you have a few hundred hours to spend cleaning things up. I have around 800 unique contacts but 24,000 total. For the scenario where I have 30 of the same name, the steps outlined in the hide duplicates solution would require 29 merges... then on to the next of 800 contracts... not practical.

Anyone have a bulk method?

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Answer 3

sirjuul Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 25, 2021 11:39 AM in response to askbarnabas

Good lead. I went there and only seem to be able to find one bulk action, and that is to delete. I'm tempted to do that and just have what is in my Outlook. Despite thinking I previously had Outlook as my default before, I'm certain there are dozens, if not more than a hundred contacts that might be in iCloud and not Outlook.

If there are more specific steps I can take after selecting all, that would be appreciated information.

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Answer 4

sirjuul Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 25, 2021 6:24 PM in response to askbarnabas

So... I tried to go nuclear and delete all 24,000 contacts in iCloud.com from my Windows laptop. Before I did this, I turned off save contacts in my mobile Outlook app so that didn’t get in the way. I also toggled off Gmail contacts on my iPhone, which is my only other connected app. The plan was to then turn back on save contacts in Outlook and I’d have 98% of my contacts back.

Unfortunately, this only seems to be chopping off about 1,000 at a time before it errors out. The screen shows no contacts after a few minutes, but then when I hit refresh, the majority of my contacts come back.

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