How to Quickly Delete Duplicate IPhone Contacts
When moving Apple contacts from one device to another, duplicates sometimes occur. Luckily, using your iPhone, Mac, or even your browser, there are easy ways to delete these contacts and avoid having ten different copies of the same person appear on your phone.
Remove duplicate contacts on your iPhone
Luckily, iOS has come a long way and now lets you quickly view and merge duplicate contacts on your iPhone. It’s really simple: just open the Contacts app and scroll all the way to the top. If you have duplicate contacts on your phone, you’ll see a card underneath your name that says Duplicate Found . Tap View Duplicates and select Merge All to fix duplicate contacts on your iPhone.
Remove duplicates using the Contacts app on Mac
If you have a Mac, you can delete duplicate iCloud Address Book entries using the built-in Contacts app. For this to work, you’ll first need to make sure iCloud contacts are synced to your Mac—if they’re not, you won’t be able to see anyone in the app. Simply click the Apple logo in the top left corner of your Mac’s home screen and choose System Preferences > Apple ID . Under Apps on this Mac using iCloud, make sure Contacts is checked.
After that, open the Contacts app on your Mac. If you’re having trouble finding it, use Command+Spacebar to launch a Spotlight search (or try these top alternatives ). In the search bar, enter “Contacts” and open the application. Here you will be able to see all the duplicate entries in your contact list. To find all duplicates in one fell swoop, go to the menu bar at the top and select Card > Find Duplicates .
After a few seconds, the Contacts app will show you how many duplicates you have. The pop-up window has a checkbox that asks if you want to merge other contacts that have the same name but contain different information—for example, two entries for John Doe, one containing his phone number and the other his email address. You can check this box if you wish, but it is not required.
When you’re ready, tap Merge and the Contacts app will do the rest.
Manually select and remove duplicates on iCloud.com
Additionally, you can use iCloud.com to manually select and remove duplicate contacts. Please note that this method does not work on mobile devices such as iPhone. You will have to open iCloud.com on your laptop or desktop computer to access your iCloud contacts.
To get started, go to iCloud.com in any browser and sign in. Once logged in, click Contacts to view your online address book. This will show you all your contacts. Scroll down and find duplicate contacts. Hold Command on Mac or Control on Windows and click on each duplicate contact until you select them all.
Now just press “Delete” on your keyboard. You will see a confirmation pop-up that will check if you really want to delete these contacts. Yes, so select “Delete” to get rid of duplicate entries.
Use Gmail to Delete Duplicate iCloud Contacts
If you’re stuck in the browser but don’t want to spend hours manually selecting 10,000 duplicate contacts, you can quickly export iCloud contacts to Gmail and remove duplicates using Google’s automated tools. Before we continue, it’s important to understand exactly what we’re going to do: using this method incorrectly could result in you losing all of your contacts.
We are going to export all contacts from iCloud, import them into Google Contacts and remove duplicates there. Next, we will delete all contacts from iCloud and import the deduplicated contact list from Google Contacts. If something goes wrong, there is a risk of losing your contacts, so be sure to back up all your contacts and proceed with caution.
Start by logging into iCloud Contacts in any browser. With iCloud Contacts open, click the three dots icon at the top and click Select All Contacts . With all your iCloud.com contacts selected, click the gear icon again and select Export vCard . This will export a .vcf file containing all your contacts, which you can save anywhere on your computer.
Then sign in to Google Contacts in your browser. It’s best to use a new Google account that doesn’t have any previously saved contacts, this will help you avoid confusion. Once you’re signed in, click the Import button in the left panel and in the pop-up window, click Select File . Find the .vcf file you exported from iCloud, select it, and click Import .
Google Contacts will take a few seconds to import all your contacts. Once this is done, all imported contacts will be neatly sorted by labels in the left panel. It usually says “Imported DATE.” Once you’ve imported all your contacts, select “Merge and Fix” from the left panel, which is located under the “Frequently Contacted” button.
This will show all your duplicates and allow you to merge them. If there are no offers, refresh the page once. Check to see if all duplicate contacts are shown, then click Merge All . Finally, click the Contacts button on the left panel and check if all contacts are merged.
Now it’s time to export the merged contacts. Select the first contact in the list, and then click the down arrow to the left of the selected text 1 . Click All to select all contacts. Click the three dots icon below the search bar at the top. Select Export . In the pop-up window, select vCard under Export As and click Export . Save this file in a safe place on your computer.
Let’s get those fixed contacts back to iCloud. Go back to your iCloud contacts in any browser, tap the three dots icon at the top, and tap Select all contacts . If you haven’t already, click the three dots icon again and click Remove Contacts to remove all your contacts from iCloud.
Once this is done, click the + button in the top right corner of the iCloud Contacts web page and select Import Contact . Import the contacts file you just exported from Google Contacts. This will fix all your duplicate contacts in iCloud.