Duplicate Contacts on my iphone--HELP!!!!

I have duplicate contacts on my iphone and icloud.com account. I have gone in and deleted them 1 by 1 on both my icloud.com account and in my iphone contacts. However, after a few days they come back then they continue to multiply. I now have some contacts that are showing 5 times on my iphone. I have contacts on my PC through Outlook and on icloud. HELP!!!!

iPhone 12

Posted on Jun 8, 2022 5:27 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 9, 2022 1:34 PM

Hello motos,


Thank you for reaching out in Apple Support Communities. With duplicate contact, there's a chance that these contacts are syncing from more than one email account. To determine that, please go on your iPhone and open the Contacts app. Tap on "Groups" in the upper left corner and see if you have multiple accounts with a checkmark. If so, you can uncheck the account you'd prefer not to sync your contacts and see if the duplicate contacts continue to appear.


An alternative option is to turn off Contacts for the email account you prefer not to sync your contacts by going to Settings > Contacts > Accounts.


We look forward to hearing back from you with an update.


Kind regards.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 9, 2022 1:34 PM in response to motosj

Hello motos,


Thank you for reaching out in Apple Support Communities. With duplicate contact, there's a chance that these contacts are syncing from more than one email account. To determine that, please go on your iPhone and open the Contacts app. Tap on "Groups" in the upper left corner and see if you have multiple accounts with a checkmark. If so, you can uncheck the account you'd prefer not to sync your contacts and see if the duplicate contacts continue to appear.


An alternative option is to turn off Contacts for the email account you prefer not to sync your contacts by going to Settings > Contacts > Accounts.


We look forward to hearing back from you with an update.


Kind regards.

Jun 10, 2022 7:43 AM in response to motosj

motosj,


Not having the ‘Groups’ option just means there isn’t more than one group available. 


If you have Contacts disabled for all your accounts in Settings > Contacts, then it would make sense that your contacts are being stored only on your iPhone. That means changes you make to the contacts on your iPhone won’t sync with iCloud and changes made to your contacts on the iCloud website won’t sync to your iPhone. 


Are you able to follow these steps to hide some of the duplicate contacts? Hide duplicate contacts on iPhone


You also mentioned that you store contacts in both iCloud and Outlook on your computer. Do you physically sync those contacts with your iPhone? 


Thanks. 

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Duplicate Contacts on my iphone--HELP!!!!

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