how to delete huge numbers of contacts

Oh dear it looks like your extra contacts are on your actual phone.

Which is is good news if true.

Settings, your name, iCloud show all then turn off Contacts, say yes delete from my iphone.

Settings, contacts, Accounts, if you have any other accounts turn turn Contact off in those accounts and also say Delete from my iphone.

Now check contacts app. Still shows 60000? If So....

Go to home screen, tap and hold Contacts app , tap Remove app, then tap Delete app. The data will delete with it.

Restart the phone. Go to App Store, search for the Contacts app, tap the little cloud and reinstall it.

'Go back to Settings, your name, iCloud, show all, turn on Contacts

No, and I don't know how you could separately export the Main group on its own. I was hoping the Main 501 were bogus as well! If you had a backup that was made while the Main 501 were on the phone but the 60,000 were not yet, then you could restore that - but iyt is only a small chance that you did that.

I reckon it would require exporting and editing. Google for "Export my iphone contacts to Google Drive",

Backup the phone.

After turning off iCloud contacts, you could export the contacts off the phone to Google Drive app on the phone, check they are there safely, Then do the uninstall of the Contacts App..

Then in Google Drive using a computer you could possibly export the 501 Main contacts to a CSV file that could be re-imported to iCloud contacts on a computer.

It is a mess and too big a job for me to guide you through it, I have never done it, but do some searching.

You used to be able to sync contacts in iTunes from the phone to any email account such as Outlook, but the process is becoming deprecated. That is something else you can search for and try.

It is bsically a matter of getting the whole lot of the iphone to an email account contacts cloud then pulling out the 501.

Good luck.

If you have backed up the phone and safeguarded the 150 then the worst that can happen is the pesky 60,000 stubbornly remain. In that case we would be looking at safeguarding all your other data and photos off the phone to a cloud or computer and then a full restore to factory settings without a restoring from backup.

Sign into that account on a Mac or PC - it will be a lot easier.

Final alternative, as it may well be that Main and Band Spec are only on the phone and not in a third party email account, if the last manual backup you took was just before you accidentally added all these contacts then you may have the opportunity to wipe the phone and restore the backup without losing too much other data and photos.

All in all using contacts that are only on the phone is unwise and using iCloud and other email accounts' cloud facilities is much safer.

in addition turn on whatever account contains the Main list of contacts as that is not iCloud.

NB if the "Main" list is also only on your phone then you will lose them if you carry out the above procedure.

I'd love to know how you got on!

It will not the the icloud ones but I would hope it deletes the iphone-only ones.

Did you try it?