How do I edit my iPhone's contacts with my MacBook?

Sync the phone to the Mac Address Book. That way you have *all* the contacts, duplicates and all, on the Mac.

Open Address Book on the Mac and do Card, Look for Duplicates. Then merge all the dupes.

You might have to do some manual checking after the merge, because you might find some duplicated data on some of the cards, where Address Book hasn't been able to see that it's the same. But it reduces the work a lot.

Open iTunes; in Preferences, Devices, check the box that says Prevent iTunes from Syncing Automatically. This is to make sure the next step works

Then connect the phone, set iTunes to overwrite the phone's address book with the mac's (info tab in iTunes) and sync. After that, you can uncheck the automatic sync prevention box

Withe the phone connected to iTunes, click on the phone's name in the left pane of iTunes. Across the top of the main window is a list of tabs - Summary, Info, Apps etc.

Click on the one called Info - you'll see a box marked Sync Address Book Contacts. Check it. Then hit the Sync button at the bottom right of the main window of iTunes.

Then, disconnect the phone and follow the rest of the process I've outlined.

Before you reconnect the phone, make sure you've checked the Prevent Automatic syncing box in iTunes. Reconnect the phone. Go back to the Info tab, make sure the box to Sync Address Book Contacts is checked, then scroll down the pane to the Advanced section and check Contacts box under the heading Replace information on this iPhone.

Then hit the sync button. When the sync is complete, go back into iTunes Preferences, and Uncheck the prevent automatic sync box.

I hope that all makes sense

KevinKenkel wrote:

It's working --- i'm editing the contacts now. Thanks for your patience! I feel like an old person.

Don't. Whatever people say, a lot of this stuff just is not intuitive. People call it that, but it's really learned behaviour and years of exposure/practice. So if it doesn't immediately come to you, that's not down to you

When you write "Then, disconnect the phone and follow the rest of the process I've outlined."

Am I missing something'? What process is that?

Read the whole thread and you will see the process nick is referring to.

I must be thick as a brick. Reading the whole thread is one thing. Deploying "Then, disconnect the phone and follow the rest of the process I've outlined." is another thing. When?

First do this

With the phone connected to iTunes, click on the phone's name in the left pane of iTunes. Across the top of the main window is a list of tabs - Summary, Info, Apps etc.

Click on the one called Info - you'll see a box marked Sync Address Book Contacts. Check it. Then hit the Sync button at the bottom right of the main window of iTunes.

Then do this:

Sync the phone to the Mac Address Book. That way you have *all* the contacts, duplicates and all, on the Mac.

Open Address Book on the Mac and do Card, Look for Duplicates. Then merge all the dupes.

You might have to do some manual checking after the merge, because you might find some duplicated data on some of the cards, where Address Book hasn't been able to see that it's the same. But it reduces the work a lot.

Open iTunes; in Preferences, Devices, check the box that says Prevent iTunes from Syncing Automatically. This is to make sure the next step works

Then connect the phone, set iTunes to overwrite the phone's address book with the mac's (info tab in iTunes) and sync. After that, you can uncheck the automatic sync prevention box

Thanks Nick! I'm done, and my husband is still on the couch next to me manually editing. *snickers*

Speaking about Adress Book alone, I did the duplicates search, 77 were found and merged (as reported), but right after that I was presented with an endless list of duplicates (haven't counted them all but I have a strange feeling that there might be 77 of them. Is there another trick here that I don't know about, or AdressBook really ***** at finding duplicates ?

Okay, I am going nuts!

I am having the same problem clearing duplicate entries in my address book on my new iPhone 4S.

I deleted all contacts on my iPhone, edit the entries in my Address Book on my iMac, but when I sync again forcing the iMac to replace all contacts on my iPhone, all the original ones show up again. And if I do a regular sync, all the duplicates I cleaned up revert back to their originals.

Can someone please help point out my errors?

Try this:

1. Tidy up the contacts on the Mac. Then do a backup.

2. When the backup is complete, delete all the contacts

3. Sync, replacing all conatcst on the iPhone. Hopefully, you now have no conatcats on either Mac or phone.

4. Then import to the Mac from your backup

If you're syncing via iCloud it's a different process

I've got a PC, trying to work this procedure through iTunes there to sync my iPhone. I can't locate the phone in the first place. There is no "Left panel" for it to be on 😝

So here's what I did:

I connected the iPhone

Logged on to my account on iTunes

Can't see the phone nor the Mac Adress Book

Stumped there. Any clue? Mac only?

To expose the "left panel" go to the View menu and choose "show sidebar".

When the sidebar is hidden the phone should be a button on the right side of the screen just under the Search box when you are viewing the library.

The Mac Address Book is a separate application in the Dock. You must set up the iPhone to sync with it using iTunes, or set both it and the iPhone to sync to iCloud.

The manual covers all of this:

iPhone User Guide (For iOS 6.1 Software)