Unable to remove a contact from contact list

I have this problem too after updating mac os ventura. The only solution I found was to log on to my icloud account in Safari and use the web based Contacts app.

Hi. You must have written a specific word in your contact, ie 'commercial'. Go to the contact first and remove 'commercial'. The name of this contact will automatically be removed from the Commercial Group. I do this on a regular basis depending who is in a certain committee, and it always works perfectly. Good luck.

So I've been using iCloud synching for years, but I've just noticed this issue when upgrading to Big Sur. I have found a work around per someone else's suggestion of just updating the groups via iCloud. That seems to work as you would expect it should in the app itself. Not ideal, but it seems to solve the issue.

good luck!

It should work. The group being in iCloud should not prevent deleting elements from it.

Are you sure this is a group and not a Smart Group?

Doing all the editing of contacts and lists in iCloud was the answer and easily done. thanks!

I have the same problem. Very annoying. It used to work perfectly. The only way I could do it is to use my iPhone - you can delete members in a list using your phone since it does not work at all with BookAir or iMac. But be careful! It also DELETE THE CONTACT, not only from the list but in your contact app. I have a bigger problem that started 4-6 weeks ago. My contacts DO NOT sync at all between my four devices. Apple is not helping - after talking to at least 12 tech people, and 10-12 hrs on the phone trying to resolve 'their' problem, still no sync between devices, and icloud.com site.

I have also been searching for the answer to this one! I was also wondering why I couldn't drag and drop contacts into a new group (not Smart Group) on iCloud in the Contacts app. Managed to create the group but not be able to add anyone to it. Another post said that this function was discontinued for iCloud, so solution is to create a new group On My Mac, add the contacts, then drag it into the iCloud part of the sidebar. Of course, I already had an empty group there with the same name from the previous attempt to create the group in iCloud - hence now searching for how to delete the bloody thing! Seems a bizarre piece of functionality to take away... On Monterey 12.6.8.

This problem is intermittent. Sometimes the EDIT "Remove from List" is selectable and works, other times "Remove from List" is "grayed out" and not selectable. Sometimes closing and reopening the program restores this function...sometimes it doesn't. Another intermittent issue is the inability to drag a contact into a Group. Again sometimes closing and reopening the program restores the function..sometimes it doesn't. I am running Sonoma 14.1 but I have seen this problem in earlier versions of Mac OS. I hope someone from Apple Support or someone who is Contacts Program knowledgeable will fill us in on what we are doing wrong.

Highlighting the name to be removed from the group and hitting the delete key does NOT work. This is ridiculous. If someone (or some bot) from Apple reads these community posts, they should fix this stupid error right away. It should be easy and intuitive how to remove a contact from a group list.

I have this problem as well. Hitting the Delete key just gives me the 'boop' noise. Sure seems to be a bug.

I'll go over to iCloud.com and do it there.

Same problem here with 11.7.10. It's $^&%*! that you have to update your contacts via iCloud and not in the local app. this needs to be fixed!

I agree w/ SFiorillo! Apple, are you listening? Please fix this immediately so we can just add or delete contacts into/from the group. So frustrating and stupid.

I have the same problem. Restarting the app does not fix the problem. I cannot remove individual contacts from a group.