Delete read-only contacts on iPhone

Also had this problem when trying to delete a duplicate contact for the same person. I could not delete using icloud because the duplicate did not show in the icloud account but was present on iphone and ipad.

I solved it by renaming the contact after deleting every field. The done option was greyed out until I put in a name, perhaps any field could have been populated, I chose first name with just the letter z. Then I could click done. And when I clicked edit I was able to delete without the message ‘not all contacts were deleted.’

This is how I fixed it after observing the behavior:

1. open the affected contact, remove ALL fields so there’s no data left (no phone, no name, no email, etc. - clear EVERY field)
2. you will not be able to hit “Done,” until there’s at least some info somewhere, so I put three blank spaces in the field for “Notes” and then was able to hit “Done.”
3. close out Contacts, and reopen it - if you did like me, you’ll have a ton of “No names” at the bottom of your contacts
4. you should now be able to successfully remove these Contacts that you could not before

I just had this problem and it because I had saved the contacts in what’s app and was trying to delete them from the ordinary phone so I went into the contact messages I wished to delete and deleted their information from what’s app and then deleted their message and they disappeared from my phone

Delete a contact

1. Go to the contact’s card, then tap Edit.
2. Scroll down, then tap Delete Contact.

Hey, I had the same problem for the past few days and managed to delete the contact throughout my computer.

Simply by login in my iCloud account > Contacts > Selecting the contact I wanted to delete > Delete contact.

I tried many different things, but this one worked.

Hope it can help someone else as well.

If you can't delete contacts means you might have Restrictions ON.

Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Contact : set to Allow Changes.

Note: Content & Privacy Restrictions must be enabled to make changes.

Good evening everyone !

We had exactly the same issue with a customer .

After some look I had to the community threads , we managed to resolve this issue this way :

• First clicked on Edit : removed all names and telephones
• Then wrote 3 dots on the Notes field
• Then clicked on Done
• The contact remained there with the difference now that underneath it was the SIRI suggestion
• It seems that Siri is picking up the contact from the Whats app profile
• Deleted it there as well by clicking Do not suggest contact by Siri
• Then this allowed us to delete completely the contact with nothing inside , just the 3 dots
• Even at the search field the contact would not appear anymore
• We also added the contact again and this time were able to delete the contact straight ahead without deleting Siri suggestion
• It seems it a one - time thing - depending on how the whats app profile has been set up

Hope that helps !!

I’ve just been able to remove contacts that were ready only, it seems the connection to a WhatsApp profile was stopping it.

When I went to edit, I removed them as a WhatsApp contact first and then deleted the contact completely.

Because it's still connected to an active Whatsap chat. So you need to delete chat with that person. Second you need to go to contacts, edit, and click Don't Suggest

This did the job for me. Goodluck.

This is wrong. Read-Only means the contact is stored on another device and is being synced to the iPhone. You cannot delete Read-Only contacts from the contact card. You will get an error stating that the contact has not been deleted. You can only remove a Read-Only contact by deleting it from the account that is syncing to the phone, like google, Facebook, or Outlook.

Thank you tianna266. I had gotten to three point where I called Apple Support. 😂 And they had me on hold for several minutes then transferred me to a senior advisor that explained the same thing you just said. I went to my iCloud account on my laptop and was able to delete the contact.

U didn’t delete it properly .. go to contact info on WhatsApp not on your main contact … on the WhatsApp contact info click edit and click delete and delete all the related number message and call list from whatsapp and restart your phone and now delete from your main contact … it is keep showing read only contact that mean the number still exists on your WhatsApp…

After u try the method as I just told u still doesn’t work last option is to do back up on WhatsApp…. Delete the WhatsApp app and before reinstall the WhatsApp app try to delete the contact again … if it works then just install the WhatsApp again if it doesn’t work it mean the contact could be in your phone history … or email history so u need to do Siri search or phone search it will show whether the contact still appear on your phone or not it is not a big issues so don’t worry just must know how to tackle it. Try it all the method and let me know

Hi you must understand that the read only contact are because the contact was added into your phone contact from WhatsApp… you need to delete the related contact from WhatsApp first including message and calls history from WhatsApp then you will be able to delete the contact from your phone contact it will work if not there is still history message or call or email linked to this contact so u have to search on your phone and delete everything related to the contact. It work for many others. The reason is many people will send message through WhatsApp for connection so u will add the person from WhatsApp automatically… then this problem read only contact will start again so if u add contact through normal contact first you won’t have this problem try it out !