iOS 17 iPhone doesn’t show me the option to merge duplicate contacts

Making sure you’re in the “All Contacts” List, scroll all the way to the bottom of your contacts and you should see “[Number] Duplicates Found” in blue text below the last entry. Click the blue text to get to the duplicates menu where you can choose to merge them.

Hope this helps.

Happy to help.

From your attached image, it looks like you’re in the “All iCloud” List. Click on “Lists” in top left hand corner, select “All Contacts” at the top and try scrolling to the bottom again.

Mine looks like this:

Another thing you could try that may trigger a reassessment of duplicates is to disable and re-enable contacts from each account, save for the iCloud account.

1. In the contacts app, click on Lists in top left and take note of all the accounts with contact information;

2. In the settings app, go to Contacts > Accounts and click on each of the accounts noted (except for the iCloud account) and toggle off the contacts option in each;

3. Go back to the Contacts app and swipe down while in the Lists page to refresh it (you may need to close the contacts app and reopen to refresh it).

4. Click on “All Contacts” and see if duplicates button is now available under My Card or after last entry (if it is, this will just be a duplicates assessment of your iCloud contact entries);

5. Repeat step 2, this time toggling the contacts option for each noted account to on; and

6. Lastly, repeat steps 3 and 4. If successful, any duplicates assessment should be across all accounts.

Good luck!!

SOLVED!!!!!!

I also do not have the merge duplicate option on iOS 17 (iPhone 15).

in my situation, I had thousands of duplicates and I had just switched over to Apple from an android device. My duplicates were actually in my Google account. I was able to sign into Google contacts and merge all duplicates there and it subsequently immediately updated and removed all duplicates on my iPhone. I hope this helps someone else.

This completely worked for me!!

Resolve duplicate contacts

If two entries for the same person aren’t linked automatically, you can unify them manually.

1. Tap one of the contacts, tap Edit, then tap Link Contacts.
2. Choose the other contact entry to link to, then tap Link.

When you link contacts with different first or last names, the names on the individual cards don’t change, but only one name appears on the unified card. To choose which name appears on the unified card, tap one of the linked cards, tap the contact’s name on that card, then tap Use This Name For Unified Card.

Note: When you link contacts, those contacts aren’t merged. If you change or add information in a unified contact, the changes are copied to each source account where that information already exists.

I have this same situation, about 6000 contacts and over 1000 duplicates that appear to have been created as my ipad has been connected and disconnected from various companies exchange servers over the years - the ipad contact app has never worked terribly well with Exchange servers and in some cases created 5+ duplicate contacts all for the same person from the same company. My ipad (newly purchased, ios 17) does not display the "duplicates found" button.

Here are other options I found:

1. If you have a Mac (I don't), apparently there is a way in the Mac contact app to remove duplicates if the button is missing on your ipad or iphone. The Mac will clean up the duplicates in icloud which should flow through to your ipad or iphone.
2. If your ipad is connected to both icloud and gmail, you can export your contacts from icloud and import them into the google contacts app (which has a deduplicator that works) and then delete all of your icloud contacts.
3. A variation of #2 is you can export all contacts from icloud to google, deduplicate them in google, delete all of the contacts in icloud, and re-import all of the deduplicated contacts from google to icloud.
4. In my case, I had just a handful of contacts that were in icloud that were not in my google account, so I used a third party app to identify contacts that had been added to my ipad over the last 6 months and manually copied them to my google account, then deleted all of my icloud contacts and turned off icloud contact sync on my ipad.

Hello ZoranM78,

Thanks for choosing the Apple Support Communities. We see you're looking to merge or remove duplicate contacts. We have a user guide that will help you through getting this sorted out. Follow the steps below and let us know if you have any questions.

Get rid of duplicate contacts on iPhone - Apple Support

"In the Contacts app , link contact cards for the same person in different accounts so they appear only once in your All Contacts list. When you have contacts from multiple sources, you might have multiple entries for the same person in Contacts. To keep redundant contacts from appearing in your All Contacts list, contacts from different sources with the same name are linked and displayed as a single unified contact.

Resolve duplicate contacts

If you have more than one contact card with the same first and last name, you can merge the duplicate contacts.

1. Below My Card, tap Duplicates Found.
2. Tap individual contacts to review and merge them, or tap Merge All to merge all duplicate contacts.

Link contacts manually

If two entries for the same person aren’t linked automatically, you can unify them manually.

1. Tap one of the contacts, tap Edit, then tap Link Contacts.
2. Choose the other contact entry to link to, then tap Link.

When you link contacts with different first or last names, the names on the individual cards don’t change, but only one name appears on the unified card. To choose which name appears on the unified card, tap one of the linked cards, tap the contact’s name on that card, then tap Use This Name For Unified Card.

Note: When you link contacts, those contacts aren’t merged. If you change or add information in a unified contact, the changes are copied to each source account where that information already exists."

We hope this helps.

Cheers!

Here's what worked for me. I opened the Contacts app on my MacBook, hit Card up top, then Look For Duplicates. I had to merge them five times because it kept finding new ones. I still have two of each contact in the Contacts app on my laptop, BUT it fixed it on my phone! My mom had 6 duplicates before, and now none. Hopefully, this works for someone!

This worked for me. It's been so frustrating. THANK YOU @reneethea.

I had HUNDREDS of duplicates in my iPhone Contacts, but "Merge Duplicates" option never appeared, despite unlinking all accounts except for my iCloud account and restarting my phone. Based on your advice, I did the "Look for Duplicates" on my Mac several times, and then when I opened Contacts on my phone, "Merge Duplicates" button appeared! I did that a couple of times and now my Contacts are not insane.

Thank you

[Edited by Moderator]

Actually, one last thing to try mate. Make sure you’re using the “Contacts” app and not the “Phone” app and follow the instructions again.

Fingers crossed this works for you.

Let me know how you go.

Every time I post, I think I’ve found a solution for you but it’s proving much harder than I expected.

I found another thread where someone suggested “Select contacts, choose my card, go back to contacts, and the “duplicates found” button appeared”.

I tried that but the duplicate found button under my card did not appear. I then tried it in the contacts section of the “Phone” app and again no contact button appeared. Strangely enough, I then scrolled down to the bottom of my contacts list in the “phone” app and the duplicates found text was now there too. Previously, it was only at the bottom of the all contacts list through the “contacts” app.

While I fully expect you to come back saying it has not worked, thought you might like to try going into and out of my card and checking again… :)

I tried this. It works. Basically go to your MacOS->contacts->card->Look for duplicates...

Thank you so much.

Do you actually have any duplicates? If not, You won't get "duplicates found"message,

Apple support suggests

① delete by hand ② change to faster VPN

after trying syncing to and back Google I am using paid App to delete multiple contacts. This is taking months….

did anyone tried saving essential contacts to iCloud and then deleting all?

That doesn’t actually address the problem. The merge duplicates option has disappeared and I assume we’re all hoping to figure out how to get it back and not do it manually. Hope Apple Support will take another crack at it.