How do I delete contacts on my iPad with iOS 7

BTW, thanks for the "Solved" even though nobody here was able to actually solve your issue.

SergZak wrote:

Facebook strikes again. 😐

Wow, I'd love to know how that remark solved the OP's problem! 😕

I'll tell you how I would solve this problem.

I sync my iPad's personal stuff with Microsoft Outlook.

Should I want to delete all my contacts, which took me decades to build, I would select all those contacts in Microsoft Outlook and delete them.

If this is not possible for you, then you have to delete each contact one by one on your iPad as suggested by many in this discussion, by tapping "Edit" in the upper right corner and then tapping "Delete Contact" at the very bottom of each contact.

Even though you have a great method for managing your contacts, check out the app I mentioned earlier in this thread. It's nice to have an immediately accessible backup to restore from and have the ability to backup the whole list wherever you are, even when there's no PC around. One can never have too many backups, especially of something as important as contacts.

OK, thanks, but I have been using Microsoft Outlook now for over 10 years successfully.

No reason to change a winning team today...! 😉

I figured out a backdoor way to do mass deletions on the iPad. While it is somewhat time consuming it saved my plenty of time as this is better than deleting 1200 contacts one at a time.

A lot of these types of issues are created by the use of iCloud. While I agree that much of this is un-Apple-like, we have to accept the fact that computing is changing and the cloud is pretty new to some of us who have been with Apple for the full 30 years since the Mac was first introduced. We have to accept change - it will keep us young.

I wanted to use iCloud as my main storage solution with everything (Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, etc.) and have them seamlessly update across my platforms (iMac, iPhone, and iPad). Everything was going pretty good until I tried to update my iPad with my newly reduced contact list (I went from over 1200 to 500 and I spent hours doing this on my iMac which was using my main iCloud account). When I went to update my iPad by adding my main iCloud account it wanted to merge all the contacts on my iPad that were "On My iPad" which was the original list of over 1200 contacts. All that work for nothing! - no way! I really do think Apple should give the option of merging data or selecting which entire set of data should be used going forward. With this choice, I could have just said I want the data in my main iCloud account to be the data that survives and it would have deleted all the contact data that was being stored on my iPad. Because I couldn't wait for Apple to develop this, I figured out a work around.

1. First I set up a new iCloud account with a new Apple ID that I was only going to use once for this purpose. No need to fret, they are free so use some Apple ID that you will never use again after this excercise.

2. Next, I went to my Mail, Contacts, Calendars in Settings on my iPad and set up a new account using the new iCloud account.

3. I then changed the setting by turning on just Contacts (I turned off Mail, Calendars, Reminders and Notes because I didn't have the same problems with these apps but I suspect that if you are having similar problems, this would work for those apps as well).

4. When asked if I wanted to merge, I replied OK.

5. I then logged onto my new iCloud account through Safari where mass deleting is acheived by selecting all and hitting the delete key - why Apple couldn't just offer a similar feature on iPad is beyond me. This cleared out my contact data base on this temporary iCloud account and on the newly synched iPad.

6. I then went back to Mail, Contacts, Calendar in Settings on the iPad and removed the temporary iCloud account I just added and I no longer had any contacts on my iPad.

7. Finally, I set my new main iCloud account up in the iCloud in Settings and now my iPad has my new reduced list of 500 contacts.

Alls well that ends well - I hope this helps. We are all learning how to best use iCloud and it is not as intuitive as a simple local drive. Good Luck

Thank you, SergZak!!

Downloaded McBackup from the App Store (Free). Backed up in 30 seconds, and deleted ALL contacts upon my selection in as fast!! THANK YOU!!!! 🙂

A simply way to delete contacts on your iPad is to add an email account in settings, turn on contacts. You will be asked, what do you want to do with contacts already on your iPad. You can then delete your contacts.

I gave my iPad to my son and unfortunately my 800+ contacts did a sync with his Apple ID and saved to his iCloud. I could only delete one at a time from his account using the iPad. I didn't want to download other apps or create bogus Apple IDs. I figured out I could log into icloud.com and highlight several contacts at a time, using "shift" for contiguous or "command" for separated contacts, type command-delete, and then "enter" to delete multiple contacts at a time. I was able to preserve the 30 or so contacts I wanted to keep on the iPad for him. Took a little time to do it this way, but much faster than deleting one at a time!

I Can delete contacts on iPad except for one contact associated with Facebook. I can get into edit mode on this contact, but when I go to bottom of screen, it does not show the "delete contac" option. I tried deleting the name only, but iPad just automatically fills it back in when I hit "update". How do I get rid of this contact associated with Facebook?

I just went into iCloud settings and disconnected my contacts and all we gone.