If duplicate contacts appear on your iPhone, it is usually because your device is synchronized with other services such as iCloud or Outlook. A solution is needed without losing the contact data.
iPhone: Link duplicate contacts
If you have activated a service such as iCloud or synchronization with Outlook, your contacts will usually also be synchronized. These may then be duplicated. The iPhone tries to combine duplicate contacts into one entry automatically, but sometimes you have to help out by hand.
- First, open the “Contacts” app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
- Tap “Groups” in the upper left corner. You will see two or more groups here.
- Depending on whether the majority of your contacts are stored directly on your iPhone or are synchronized via services such as iCloud, you should activate only one group.
- If some contacts are missing afterwards, you can simply merge duplicate contacts manually.
- To do this, select the duplicate contact and tap “Edit” in the upper right corner.
- At the bottom, you will find the “Link Contacts” option.
- Select the doppelganger here and both contacts will be combined into one. This is only done visually on the iPhone, the source of the contact is not edited.
iPhone: Resolving duplicate contacts
You can also delete the contacts for which you have duplicate first and last names.
- To do this, go to the “Contacts” app on your iPhone.
- The next step is to go to “My Card” and click on “Show Duplicates”.
- Now you can tap individual contacts to have them checked. You can then merge them as described above or delete them manually.
iCloud: Delete Duplicate Contacts
If you use ApplesiCloud or synchronize your iPhone with a similar service, you can also simply switch off the synchronization of contacts. However, you should only do this if you do not need the contacts on another device and do not want them in the iCloud.
- First, open the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
- Tap your name at the top and select the “iCloud” category.
- Simply uncheck the “Contacts” option to disable synchronization.
