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Syncronization between Mac and iPhone/iPad

On my Mac the Contact register (with name, phone number, e-mail address, etc.) has tripled for most contacts. This has happened some time ago, so those not trippled may be updated more recently,

On iPhone and iPad they do not show three times. If I update a contact on the Mac it shows immediately on the iPad and the iPhone, so they sees to be updated correctly through iCloud, but not syncronized.(since the contact appear 3 times on the Mac but only once on the iPhone/iPad

However, if I delete 2 of the 3 occurrences of the same contact on the Mac I sometimes loose the same contact on iPhone/iPad, and sometimes not.


Can anyone help me to solve the problem?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Sep 21, 2018 6:41 AM

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Posted on Sep 24, 2018 12:22 PM

You are welcome. If you do have On My Mac contacts, there should be two sections in the left Sidebar. One for iCloud and one for On My Mac. If you select the On My Mac section and see a card there, you can delete it without affecting iCloud. As a safety measure, I would export it to your Desktop before deleting it. If you delete it and the card is in iCloud, you can then delete the one from the Desktop.


You can't sync. That is why I suggested doing the export before deleting. Then you have a backup copy.

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Sep 24, 2018 12:22 PM in response to efriend7

You are welcome. If you do have On My Mac contacts, there should be two sections in the left Sidebar. One for iCloud and one for On My Mac. If you select the On My Mac section and see a card there, you can delete it without affecting iCloud. As a safety measure, I would export it to your Desktop before deleting it. If you delete it and the card is in iCloud, you can then delete the one from the Desktop.


You can't sync. That is why I suggested doing the export before deleting. Then you have a backup copy.

Sep 24, 2018 9:10 AM in response to efriend7

Greetings, efriend7.


It appears that the Contacts application on your MacBook Pro is showing triplicates of the contacts you have on your iPhone and iPad. You're also using iCloud to sync them between devices, and I'm happy to help.


Get help using iCloud Contacts, Calendars, or Reminders -- Review the information and apply the steps in this article. This issue usually happens when different accounts are designated as the default account. Review each of your devices to see which account is "default".


Let me know how that goes, and take care!

Sep 24, 2018 11:40 AM in response to Eric Root

Thank you very much for your response to my question.


I have studied your links, and have so far found out that:

When I merge and link selected cards with the same contact name I get additional information on the merged card like this:

kort (card): På maskinen (on the Mac)

iCloud

(Since my Mac uses Norwegian I put the English translation in (parenthesis) and this may be different from the exact phrase used in the English version)


I guess that this means that the contact data is saved on the Mac and on the iCloud independently, and thus appears twice.

Do I need to have it saved on my Mac separately from the iCloud? If not how can I delete the independent contact card on my Mac? and still keep it on iCloud.


However, be aware of that I have done some individual deleting of double or triple contacts where I in some cases have lost the contact on my iPhone. I then probably have deleted the iCloud-version and not the "on the Mac"-version. (I now have between 200 and 300 double contacts)


Is it possible to syncronize in a way that the version on the Mac is deleted, but if the same contact does not exist in iCloud then iCloud will be updated with this contact?


Grateful for any help.

Syncronization between Mac and iPhone/iPad

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