How can I Deal with Contacts that are in "All iCloud" AND in "All on My Mac"

Question

How can I Deal with Contacts that are in "All iCloud" AND in "All on My Mac"

I do not want or need separate "All iCloud" AND in "All on My Mac" Contacts accounts. I want the same set of unduplicated contacts operating and syncing across my MacBookPro, my iPhone and my iCloud.

How do I achieve this?

I currently have 2 separate Contacts accounts - "All iCloud" AND in "All on My Mac"

This results in when I select "All contacts" I'm being shown many many many (did I say many?) duplicate contacts. I seem to have discovered tonight that these duplicates arise from there being these 2 different Contacts accounts and there being duplicate contacts between the two accounts.

But not identical duplicates. Seems. like past edits to one of the duplicate contacts were not transferred automatically to the other duplicate contact.

Again, this "feature" of Contacts is driving me nuts. I don't need or want this duplication between 2 separate Contacts accounts - "All iCloud" AND in "All on My Mac"

I want one set of all of my contacts to be on Contacts on iCloud and that's that.

How do I achieve this?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.5

Posted on Aug 28, 2022 9:12 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

PRP_53

Level 10

91,243 points

Aug 29, 2022 6:31 AM in response to Steven Weinberg1

Yes there is a way to " Find Duplicates " and then " Merge " and these features are builtin features and no third party software involved.

Once you are comfortable the Duplicates are all now merged and stored on iCloud, just High-Light the Contacts in the " On My Mac " Category and Remove them

The make New Contacts - just be certain to hight-light the iCloud Category and it will be in iCloud.

Refer to 3 images below.

Should you have additional questions - please do not hesitate to ask :-)

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Answer 2

PRP_53

Level 10

91,243 points

Aug 29, 2022 4:47 AM in response to Steven Weinberg1

As Denoted by the actual Name " On My Mac " , these Contacts are stored Locally ( On the computer Internal Drive ).

Those that are on iCloud are stored on iCloud.

Changes made on one device will be uploaded to iCloud and Synced to all other Devices the Uses has which are signed into the same Apple ID and using iCloud.

How iCloud keeps information up to date across all your devices

If the User is certain the On My Mac Contacts are all duplicates and what to remove them - do exactly that - Remove the Duplicates from On My Mac.

To share, have exactly one User Account on all Apple Devices and have Contacts stored in iCloud - no " On My Mac " Contacts

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Answer 3

Aug 29, 2022 6:14 AM in response to PRP_53

A discussion surrounding this topic can get wildly complicated very quickly. I’ll try to stay focused on the key issues and be clear.

because, in the past, I have not been conscious of the different On ICloud and On My Mac sets of contacts,

because I generally choose the “All Contacts” view and see the many many till now bewildering duplicates and

because Contacts does not clearly tell me if a Contact I am editing is a contact On My Mac or a contact On iCloud (leading to two sets of contacts with differences between contacts for the same person)

because Contacts does not tell me if a new contact I am creating will be either a contact On My Mac or a contact On iCloud

because in trying to eliminate the duplication I see in the All contacts view I try using the “eliminate/combine duplications” feature and didn’t understand why obvious duplicates persisted in the All Contacts view since Contacts seemingly does not eliminate/combine duplicates between the two distinct On My Mac and On iCloud sets of contacts

i guess my current contacts are a mess.

can I just wipe out my collection of contacts On My Mac by dragging them all into my On iCloud set and them performing the eliminate/combine duplicates?

2. can I also tell Contacts that I never again want it to create any new contacts that are “On My Mac”? That it should only operate in the “On iCloud” sphere?

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How can I Deal with Contacts that are in "All iCloud" AND in "All on My Mac"

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