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I have hundreds of duplicate groups in the Contacts app for macOS Big Sur

Contacts in Big Sur has been unusable. I have tons of duplicate groups—hundreds of them. Whenever I try to make a change, I get the pinwheel and have to wait, so manually deleting them won't work.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.4

Posted on Jul 6, 2021 5:01 PM

Best reply

Tom Litchford Author

Level 1

28 points

Posted on Jul 6, 2021 5:32 PM

I posted this after having this issue and ultimately figuring out the fix myself. To resolve it, I ended up going into the Library files on my Mac to remove the local data.

Before performing the following steps, you should make a backup of your contacts just in case anything goes wrong.

Close the Contacts app
Open iCloud settings in System Preferences (Apple Menu > System Preferences > Apple ID)
Uncheck Contacts
In Finder, type Command-Shift-G or click on the Go menu and select "Go to Folder"
Copy and past the following text into the dialog box

~/Library/Application\ Support/Address\ Book

Delete the following files:
- AddressBook-v22.abcddb
- AddressBook-v22.abcddb-shm
- AddressBook-v22.abcddb-wal
Open the Sources folder
Open each folder inside the Sources folder and delete all copies of the above listed files
Open Contacts
Open iCloud settings in System Preferences (Apple Menu > System Preferences > Apple ID)
Check Contacts
Your data should sync from iCloud. If it doesn't, you may need to restore your contacts from your backup.

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