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How to delete duplicate contacts

How to delete duplicate contacts

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.1

Posted on Apr 29, 2012 8:24 AM

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Posted on Apr 29, 2012 8:50 AM

See http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4147. Also, there's an app for deleting duplicate contacts called Remove Duplicate Contacts and Events.

14 replies

Sep 23, 2013 7:50 AM in response to jacobwidrick

How did you get those duplicates? And do you have the duplicates on the phone or on the actual iCloud account when you sign in to the website?


If they're on the phone alone you may be syncing the same list of contacts from two different places (i.e. iCloud and some email account) and if you delete them manually from the phone they'll show up again later. Check under settings>mail contacts and calendars to see if you're syncing contacts from any of your email accounts. If you are, log into those accounts on the computer and see if the list of contacts is the same that you have on, say, your iCloud account. If it is, you can go on the phone and turn off contacts syncing under that particular email address. It will tell you that it'll delete the contacts from the phone, but that's what you're going to want.

Dec 30, 2013 6:31 PM in response to hannahsage

hannahsage wrote:


How did you delete all contacts from iPhone? And do you have the duplicates on the phone or on the actual iCloud account when you sign in to the website?


If they're on the phone alone you may be syncing the same list of contacts from two different places (i.e. iCloud and some email account) and if you delete them manually from the phone they'll show up again later. Check under settings>mail contacts and calendars to see if you're syncing contacts from any of your email accounts. If you are, log into those accounts on the computer and see if the list of contacts is the same that you have on, say, your iCloud account. If it is, you can go on the phone and turn off contacts syncing under that particular email address. It will tell you that it'll delete the contacts from the phone, but that's what you're going to want.

I have this problem. I turned off iCloud most contacts were gone. But there are still about 28 or so that is not on iCloud but only on my phone. I don't have contacts synced with any other servers (gmail or yahoo). I click edit, delect contact but it's still there. Any suggestions? The restore doesn't work becuase it seems to be already saved in that restore file. I can't restore as new or I'll lose everything else. Thanks for the help.

Jan 14, 2014 11:57 PM in response to Linaho

i have found a very easy way to get rid of duplicate contacts. actually it happens when your contacts from your email and phone directly mixed together. all you need to do is turn off your contacts from your email. go in setting - mail, contacts , calenders. now you have choice that you want to keep your icloud contacts or email contact. i simply went in my email account and turn off my contacts from all of my email acounts and my problem was solved. you also have choice to turn off your contacts from icloud ( if you are using icloud as well )

hope it will help 🙂

Jul 3, 2014 12:53 PM in response to Pubmariner

I had duplicates on my ipad but not iphone. Not every contact was duplicated. I logged directly into icloud using my mac, no duplicates there.


On my ipad I went in to setting>mail>account and it came up with a box titled "icloud" with a list of options. I switched off contacts and it asked me if I wanted to delete the contacts from my ipad, Ii said yes. I then checked in contacts and there were none. I then went back in to

setting>mail>account etc and switched contacts back on, they appeared with no duplicates.


I think what was happening is that contacts, which were on my ipad before I started using icloud to syc contacts, were still there. Basic process is, switch contacts off , delete contacts from ipad, switch contacts back on.


Do not do what i did at first, which is just delete the duplicate copies on my ipad, this just removed them from icloud so they disappeared from my iphone.


Why the instuctions by apple cannot address this simple reason for duplicates I do not know. Instead they give possible reasons which are not applicable to most users.

Aug 15, 2015 7:54 AM in response to randers4

Get the app - "Remove Duplicate Contacts and Events!" This was SO easy! Thanks for the tip. I had duplicates on the iPhone but not in Outlook. Cringed at the thought of deleting them all individually. Took 30 seconds to download the free app to my phone, then had to give the app permission to access my contacts. It then found the duplicates and deleted them in about 10 seconds. Thanks so much!

How to delete duplicate contacts

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