remove duplicate contact groups

Hey tbrianmann,

I would check out the steps in this article, some of the steps might help:

iCloud: Resolving duplicate Contacts after setting up iCloud Contacts

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4147

Have a great day,

Delgadoh

I've just developed the exact same problem. It's not duplicate contacts, it's dozens of repeats of my groups with the same name. I can't find any help on the web for why this suddenly started happening. And it appears on all my devices, iPHone, iPad, Mac, even the icloud website.

I am having this same problem with duplictae contacts and groups as well. It started when I got very confused during a sync via iCloud. Won't do that again. I think the duplicates arise from turning on and off the checkable box for cintacts in the iCloud preferenece pane. When it asks if you want to save a copy on your mac or not. If you say yes, you can still view your contacts when you're logged out of your apple id. If no, then you only see your contacts when you're logged to icloud. If you do this turn on, turn off a coiuple of times it causes duplicate to start sproutiong up. The thing that's creeping me out is I don't know which group is the "real" one and which is the duplicate. I'm nopt saying this very well. I want to make sure I'm deleting the copy and keeping the original. This iCloud thing is very tricky. I got rid of the duplicate contacts by using the "look for duplictaes" command on the card menu in contacts. That solved the indiviual contact duplicates problem. Unfortuneately they don't have a look for duplicates command for groups.

I am having the same problem: all my contacts and groups are duplicated!

If you all still need this info, this is what I found after reviewing many discussions and researching: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11585. It worked beautifully!! Best of luck.

There should really be a different discussion thread for these two problems. Thanks SFAppleFam, but the solution you link is not the problem I am having. I have NO duplicate contacts. I had thousands of repeated contact GROUPS. For example, I had a group called Friends. Suddenly I had thousands of groups called Friends. This happened with most of my groups and I could delete them one at a time, but not multiple groups at once. It took 5-10 seconds to delete each group. This had no effect on the contacts (unless I delete the last instance of a group, and then all those contacts would be deleted.) The problem is now fixed. I went to the genius bar at an Apple Store and they were stymied. They suggested I call Apple Care. I did so. The support technician was also stymied. However, he escalated the problem to a senior engineer and it ultimately required me giving access, including my password to the Apple Senior engineer. Four days later they had removed all the thousands of groups. I was left with no groups, but all my contacts, which was much better. It is easy for me to put 900 contacts in new groups. It would literally have taken me a year to delete all the duplicate groups. I give Apple credit for 1) fixing it and 2) giving me a person with a name and difect extension I could contact as I went through the process. He called to follow up to ensure the problem was fixed and that I had changed my password to lock Apple out of my data again. I should have done it sooner. I never got to talk to the senior engineer who fixed the problem so I don't know how they did it. I could have fixed it myself if Apple would still permit what mobile me once did--the ability to overwrite what's on the cloud with what's on your computer, but iCloud no longer permits this. iCloud is the master and whatever is there rules. You can overwrite your computer from iCloud, but not the other way around. So, to summarize, duplicate contacts are easy to fix. Multiple contact Groups? Call Apple care.

Thanks balancedlife, your post is the first time I have seen someone correctly identify and state the same problem I am having. Apple Support has not been a help at all, and since I don't have AppleCare anymore, I am stuck. It is unbelievable that Apple hasn't solved this problem without having to resort to what you had to go through.

When I look at my iCloud contacts on a web browser, all looks fine and clean. No duplicate contacts OR multiple groups (at present, my Contacts App on OS X Mavericks shows 4 iCloud groups and multiple sets of my other groups). This is clearly a local problem with Contacts, OS X Mavericks, etc since the data in iCloud seems to be fine.

I have been writing about this, searching for an answer for a year now. Apple, VV.T.F.?

Anil

I found a solutiuon that worked for me from a different thread posted below. The only thing I did differently was I moved the whole directory /AddressBook to my desktop. When I launched Contacts after that, I saw that OS X created a new AddressBook directory. I then went to iCloud and switched Contacts back on and boom I had all my updated contacts from iCloud WITHOUT duplicate groups!

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Back up all data.

Quit Contacts or Address Book if it’s running. If you use iCloud, uncheck the box marked Contacts in the iCloud preference pane.

Triple-click the text on the line below to select it, then copy it to the Clipboard (command-C):

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata

In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder

from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V), and press return.

A Finder window will open with a folder selected. Move the selected folder to the Desktop, leaving the window open for now.

Relaunch the application and test. If there’s no improvement, quit and put back the item you moved, overwriting the newer one that may have been created in its place. Otherwise, delete the item.

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Good to know. Thanks for the update. FYI, in my situation, all the extra contact groups also appeared in my icloud account.

To get rid of the extra "groups" and this was on my phone all I did was turn off my contacts in iCloud and delete the contacts from my phone. I waited a second and turned it back on and it fixed the duplicates. Make sure you are not losing any contacts when you do this and make sure to make iCloud the default in contacts again after you are done.

Did you have duplicate groups on your desktop as well as iCloud?

I had high hopes this was going to do the trick, but as soon as I closed and re-opened Contacts a second time the duplicate groups returned. There must be someplace else besides the MetaData that controls this.

Beauty, this worked for me. My issue began with Mail Rules. Contacts that I knew were in a Group would not follow the Mail Rules for the group.while others in ostensibly in the same group would. Obviously they were in different groups of the same name together. I would sometimes edit the rules and find "No Folder Selected". There were no duplicated Groups in Contacts itself in my case.