Duplicate me.com accounts in Contacts

Question

Level 1

4 points

Duplicate me.com accounts in Contacts

On my 27 inch iMac, Contacts shows me with two identical me.com accounts and many duplicated records. If I amend one record it updates the corresponding one but this slows down my system.

The iPhone and MacBook pro do not have this problem, so it is peculiar to the desktop.

In desperation I exported all my cards to an archive, but this did not solve the problem.

I now cannot re-import the archive because, with all the duplicates, the size of the file (8400 cards, 12MB) exceeds the Apple limit.

Any ideas please? Apple help spent half a day on this last year with no result.

iMac 27″, macOS 13.3

Posted on May 28, 2023 4:24 AM

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Answer 1

bruno75

Community Specialist

May 29, 2023 6:10 PM in response to raedgecliffe

Hey there raedgecliffe,

We'd like to help by learning more about what's happening along with ruling out some possible causes:

If we're correct in understanding that the same Apple ID is signed in on your Mac(along with your two other devices), and your devices have iCloud Contacts enabled, we agree that this is strange behavior as all should show the same Contacts information. When did this start to occur only on your Mac?
Do the duplicates also show if you check from the iCloud website? Here's the link to test this: iCloud
Since you have a compatible Mac model, the latest version is macOS 13.4. You can verify this by clicking on the Apple logo at the top left corner of the screen, then on ‘About This Mac’. In case you needed it, this link shows how to first back up, then update: Update macOS on Mac

Cheers!

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Answer 2

raedgecliffe Author

Level 1

4 points

May 30, 2023 3:12 AM in response to bruno75

Bruno, Many thanks indeed! My Contacts database is massively important to me.

I have lived with this problem for several years without resolution.

I was running 13.3.1 (a) but have just updated as you suggest.

One clue is that when I open a problematic contact, the record shows that contact as having two identical me.com cards in its "cards" field.

As an Apple user since the 1980's, I went with the early versions of Apple cloud storage, so it may be that the transfer from icloud.com to me.com caused it.

I have an icloud alias but doubt that is the problem.

I hope this helps!

Richard

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