Deleted iCloud contacts don't delete on phone

Turned contact syncing off. Waited a day and no change. Other ideas?

Just fyi, these are not phone cache contacts. Most of near 1,000 contacts hasn't been used for decades; beyond the life of the devices.

All of the contacts entered into iCloud are on the phone, and the group-display options are recognized and work as expected (i.e. family group only displays contacts in that group).

However, if I select All iCloud groups, I get all the deleted contacts.

Since your post tells me the deleted contacts should have been synced with the phone, there's the possibility that some file has been corrupted.

In case it matters, I use Outlook on a laptop to access the iCloud account. It was from there that I deleted the iCloud contacts. iCloud is enabled on the laptop.

Just FYI

Ran 3 simple 'add contact' tests, one from each of the locations (phone, PC, iCloud.com). Sync seemed to run as expected in all 3.

The only wrinkle came when moving the contact to a group. For example, the first test created the contact on the PC, placing it in an Archive group. On the phone, the contact displays but only if All Groups is selected. It's not displayed when selecting only the Archive group.

I'll run more tests, this time focused on the Groups to see if Archive is somehow unique.

All the deleted items still show via iCloud.com. None of the archive entries are shown when viewing the contacts via Outlook on the PC.

I've done all the contacts changes from within Outlook on my PC. This includes deleting the archive entries, creating new group folders, and moving remaining entries to the appropriate group is also where I added the group folders and sorted remaining entries. I've made no contact changes directly in iCloud.com or via the phone.

I did turn the sync back on for the phone. Nothing changed (i.e. deleted entries are still there).

Because the entries are there at iCloud.com, it would explain why they are still there on the phone.

I think you're right, there's something, either with the Outlook interface, or with the way I populated the Contacts folder in iCloud originally.

I'm going to run a couple tests, now that I see how to logon to iCloud.com. I think the sync settings are on for both the laptop and the phone, so I'll do things like add and delete entries on those two devices. I'll also delete an archive entry or two from the .com interface.

I mentioned earlier that I'm new to iCloud and smart phones, but did carry an old Palm Pilot where I learned a little about syncing. My assumption is that, for the iCloud, PC, and phone to sync they way its described by Apple, each device has to have an inventory file. It may be the one on the PC is incomplete. Will post back the results.

Thanks Eric

The contacts are in the Contacts folder in iCloud. I did create some "sub-folders" to organize them a bit (e.g. business, family), and that structure is shown on the phone.

I just recently changed my AppleID so ended up having to sign back in on the phone. A few days later there are still iCloud deleted entries in the phone.

I'm waiting for an IOS update to finish so will check the settings sync off/on in a bit. Will post back re: results.

What's valuable here is that my expectation is correct: contacts deleted in iCloud should end up being deleted on the phone.

Meant I reset my Apple pswd. Apple ID didn't change.