iPhone keeps changing contacts phone label

I tried the aforementioned overnight iCloud fix but after 24 hours my contact issue was back—here is how I fixed it:

Turned off iCloud sync for Contacts under iCloud settings

iPhone: Contacts>Accounts>Gmail>Toggled Contacts Off

Mac: Contacts>Settings>Accounts>Unchecked Enable this account for Exchange (Outlook) & Gmail

Deleted all Contacts on my iPhone by USB connect to my Mac and checking sync contacts to iPhone:

You can also delete multiple contacts at once on your iPhone doing the following: 

1. Launch the Contacts app on your ‌iPhone‌, or open the Phone app and tap Contacts.
2. Using two fingers, press and hold a contact in the list, then drag your fingers up or down to highlight adjacent contacts as a selection.
3. Release your fingers to finish your selection and then long (hard) press with one finger on any highlighted contacts, then tap Delete [X] Contacts in the dropdown menu.
4. Tap Delete Contacts in the confirmation prompt.

Went to https://www.icloud.com/contacts/ and scrubbed all my Contacts, deleted duplicates (cog wheel bottom left), added correct photos and labels to all, including custom labels (this was tedious but I have been trying to fix this issue for months) I turned off ‘Automatically format phone numbers’:

Simultaneously had https://contacts.google.com open and added any missing Gmail contacts not in my iCloud Contacts by Exporting as vCard in export prompt on left-side menu:

Exported all iCloud Contacts vCards and iMessaged them all to my iPhone from my Mac:

Saved all Contacts to my iPhone and waited for them to re-populate completely; that was Saturday afternoon April 1 and it is now April 15. All custom labels and photos are intact for contacts.

There were still a few Contacts whose photos did not transfer; I AirDropped any Contacts that had remaining issues from my Mac to my iPhone until they were all correct:

Have not turned iCloud sync back on for Contacts under iCloud settings on iPhone (or iMac or Macbook) and have also unchecked Microsoft Outlook under iCloud Drive on (all) Mac as I cannot function properly at work without knowing what numbers are what in my contacts (iPhone, fax, email, mobile, office, work, personal, etc.) 

Worth noting that after doing this there is now no ‘Default’ account under Contacts in settings on my iPhone whereas before there was a choice of iCloud, Gmail, or My iPhone

Personally, I think this contact reversion issue is caused by Outlook, Gmail, or both and is ultimately an Apple (iCloud) problem that they do not know how to fix or do not know exists. 

I have the same problem with labels changing for phones, addresses and emails in my contacts, after several attempts of un-syncing and re-syncing contacts to my iCloud without any success, I went to accounts in Settings and deselected contacts for my Microsoft and Google accounts, it seems there might be conflict issue that merge labels for contacts between accounts (this shouldn’t be possible), but for some reason I can now edit contacts on my iCloud list without any more changes or reverting labels for contacts incorrectly.

I ran into the same issue and found a fix:

Contact > select the contact you want to change > Edit > scroll down all the way to the bottom > linked contacts > remove them all except icloud > save

now all your changes will stay.

it seems to me that if there is a conflict between these linked contacts iphone will set the label to something else.

I removed MS Outlook's access from Google and the problem has resolved. It seems to have something to do with Outlook's way of contact sync. There was no configuration on Outlook that worked to turn sync off and I had to remove all outlook access from google. If someone has updates on Outlook's fix to this problem, would love to hear.

I think I have a workaround, go to edit, tap the label, ignore all the presets, scroll down to custom label, type in your label,, done your way out and it should stick as your custom label.

FYI, I have been suffering with this Contacts corruption problem (and have also been working with Apple support) for many, MANY months now but regrettably with no explanations or resolutions from Apple. Trying various sync combinations and setups, I have most recently PROVEN (and documented for Apple Tech) that the source of the corruptions is the iCloud itself and ONLY the iCloud system alone even when ALL syncing to ALL my devices (iPhone, iPad, & Windows Outlook) is completely turned off/disabled. In other words, my Contacts listing in my iCloud account get corrupted (usually within 1-2 days) even with ALL device and other program syncing completely turned off over that time period, while all the Contacts left on a device (like my iPhone) remain intact and unchanged. If I then re-activate iCloud Contact syncing on the iPhone, the iPhone Contacts will then within minutes become totally corrupted again to match the corruption on the iCloud Therefore, it’s 100% certain that the problem is, and starts with, the iCloud system ALONE, and ONLY the iCloud, NOT the iPhone, iPad or Windows PC Outlook program.

Settings>Mail>Accounts>Gmail (in this example)>toggle Contacts off. See below.

I tried this simpler approach but it did not work for me and my custom labels would revert and delete after 24 to 48 hours, but the very long and involved fix I posted above did work for me and I have had zero issues since I posted it over two months ago. 99.9% sure Outlook is the culprit and the problem in my case.

I use an Apple Mac, Ipad and Iphone and an MS365 account. I synchronize my calendar and mail with MS 365, but all my Contacts are exclusively sync'd to ICloud.

I went though the same steps @Ceelo456 describes further down, but did not turn sync off - and lo and behold, the problem resurfaces. Not only do most phone records show "Phone" as the label on all phone records and "email" for mail addresses, but other unwanted content is added to fields such as Home page or Notes:

Example for home page: "ms-outlook://people/AAMkADAzZDRjZTJkLWE2M2MtNGNjZC1hMmE2LTliYWE2MTljNWQwNABGAAAAAABCNosj6vtJSoWgCSpdizWABwCEV_ZvxHQlSLj2H_TbCIySAB_52TPVAADO4beWQRtVR6hgQKAMG0R1AADPHvkDAAA=?accountKey=635cd221d37d688bff64e46d081e0e5f&accountExportedAt=608406150.56672"

Example for an inserted Note: "This contact is read-only. To make changes, tap the link above to edit in Outlook." (The note is not even true. Outlook does not have these Contacts, as I do not synchronize Contacts with Outlook or MS 365)

Another problem I encountered was that, while Contacts app allows me to select and delete several Contacts together, it will not allow me to select/Delete ALL Contacts at once. This is something I would want to do, after extracting and cleaning my 2'000+ contacts, and before re-importing them.

May I kindly ask Apple to take a REAL interest in getting the label problem solved. It would also help if Apple could provide an Export function with csv files, and allow a full ALL Contacts delete that I can extract, cleanse and the re-import.

Hi EMT404,

Edit contacts on iPhone covers general information on editing contacts including contact labels:

• "Change a label: Tap the label, then select one in the list, or tap Add Custom Label to create one of your own."

Share information such as what you mean by phone label, how it's changing, and steps you tried to continue so a complete understanding of the situation is possible.

Regards.

I have to same problem, which has only being occurring for a couple of months. Every so many hours/days all my contact phone, address, email labels change. (These are standard apple labels NOT custom labels)

i.e. phone numbers marked as mobile, home, work etc. all change to "telephone". addresses marked in the same way, change to "Address" and email addresses marked in the same way change to "email". They're for when I ask Siri to call someone at home, or give me directions to someones house, she can't do so as all labels have been modified to the ones mentioned above.

I should mention that I use iCloud to sync all my devices, iPhone, iPad, iPad Pro, Mac and two windows PC's using apples iCloud sync. This is a new problem and only started a couple of months ago. I modify them back and then after a few days later it happens again.

One last thing. It does not affect all my address book, it only seems to be people on my favourite list.

Thankyou.

I have had this same label issue of something mysteriously changing all my contacts back to the generic defaults (Phone, Email) with no resolve. This just started occurring maybe a week or few weeks ago. I went back into my contacts and corrected my various contact's custom labels (iPhone, Mobile, Work, Home, etc.) that had somehow changed back to just "Phone" and "Email", they sync correctly across all my IOS and Mac OS devices, and then at some point in time (e.g. the next day), the labels had all reverted back again to the defaults (Phone, Email). I am only syncing contacts with one server - iCloud - and have Contact Sync turned off for all other servers (MSN, Gmail, etc). I was on the phone with Apple support who was not aware of this issue within Contacts or with iCloud and now suspects it's the MS Outlook app that's causing the issue. I have been using Apple Contacts along with MS Outlook for years without issue until now. I am curious if anyone else with this issue is also launching / running MS Outlook and indeed if this is possibly what's causing this?

I am in the same boat. Extremely frustrating. Can no longer ask Siri to call an office number or mobile for a given contact, because all contacts labels have changed to “phone.” Have tried many different solutions, some of which work for a while and then default back to erasing all labels. I last isolated to have only iCloud mail contacts and no Outlook contacts, so it appears to be an Apple issue.

Some of the fixes posted seem to be workarounds. Dreading having to change labels again with no ownership and resolution of this issue by Apple.

Any updates from others will be appreciated.

Same problem. Can’t use Siri because of it. All “mobile” numbers have changed to “phone” numbers out of the blue. This is nerve wrecking.

Same here. All phone numbers revert to ‘phone’ label and all addresses revert to ‘address’ label, and Siri (nor me) can’t work out which is which when I want to call a personal mobile or a work mobile!

I resolved this problem by going into my iPhone's iCloud settings to turn off Contacts syncing with iCloud, then I signed out of my iPhone. I logged into iCloud on my laptop and deleted all of my Contacts there. It appears to take some time to fully clear out the contact data from iCloud. I don't know how much, but I waited overnight. The next day I corrected all of the contacts on my iPhone, signed back into my iPhone with my Apple ID, then turned on Contacts syncing in iCloud settings. All of my iPhone contacts uploaded and synced correctly with iCloud, and I haven't had a problem since.