How to delete Read-only Contact on iPhone

I was not able to delete some contacts from either of my iOS devices (iPad / iPhone), but I was able to delete them from my MacBook Pro (MacOS). Once deleted from MacOS, as the contacts are synched through iCloud on all devices, they were deleted from my iOS devices as well.

You do not need to worry.

what I think it is is if you save a contact, a copy of that contact is saved on whatsapp, you have to manually delete that contact on whatsapp and then you can delete same from your contacts without getting the error message. Although the name would still appear, then turn siri suggestions off for that name. Sorted!!

Just set the contact you want to delete as yourself:

Settings > Contacts > Info about me

Then go to Contacts app, at the very top click your card (the contact you've just set) then

Edit > Delete

It worked for me, I'm not telling that it will work for everyone

I tried this and it didn’t work. I deleted all details within the contact and then changed the name. Deleted it and it worked.

******I found the solution *****

most probably you Whatsapp’ed this contact. Delete the Whatsapp chat between the contact and u then go back and delete from contacts.

I have WhatsApp and for some reason the app prevents me from deleting them from the iPhone contacts, but try to delete them directly from WhatsApp and that way it is possible

Go to

‏Setting- contacts- siri and search- show contact suggestions- off

Then delete it and it should be sorted 🙏🏻

Not sure if this will work for everyone, but I was having the same issue. I didn't want to remove the cloud sync as I have contacts from gmail, yahoo and iCloud that will have to be re-merged.

I went to the contacts app on my MacBook Pro and was able to delete them there. I changed each sync on the contacts app on my Mac from automatic to every minute. Waited a minute and refreshed contacts on my iPhone by pulling down and all the "read only" ones were gone from my phone. I wasn't able to delete them directly from the iPhone, but they are at least gone now!

Had the same problem, two of the same contacts. Went to my Mac Air computer, opened contacts, opened one of the two contacts, went to file and selected delete...problem solved.

The contact name. I changed it to just gibberish and it allowed me to delete it after

Try to enter in WhatsApp --> Search Contact --> Edit --> Delete from there

After that enter in Contact and it should be ok, you can delete the contact.

Settings,

Select Siri&search then Scroll down

Select Contacts, then Show contact suggestions ( turn it off).

It works for me.

What worked for me was to set the contact I could not delete as "info about me" in Settings/Contacts and then delete "me" in contacts app. For some reason it works

This means that you have your contacts saved in multiple accounts. Try to deactivate the multiple and leave one open. Go to settings go to contacts go to accounts. You will see the multiple accounts turn off contacts unwanted account and leave the main account opened. Close the app and launch the contact icon again and try to delete. This apply to those who have multiple email accounts. I hope this helps!

I don’t know if this is an update issue, but prior to iOS 15 I also didn’t have this problem. Previously I was able to have contacts on for multiple accounts and was able to delete with no problem. Even after turning off all co tact’s on all accounts I still can’t delete. I have to log in online to delete and that doesn’t always work while testing either. Even if I turn off contacts on all accounts on my phone and simply store the contact on my phone it will not delete. I have to turn back on, merge contacts, rinse and repeat until it deletes. Wish there was a better way.