How to Merge and Delete Duplicate Contacts on iPhone

Many times, double or triple entries are made of the same person in the ‘Contacts’ section of your iPhone. The reason could be changing someone’s contact number, adding a contact twice, etc. With the introduction of the latest iOS versions, these duplicated contacts can be merged and deleted on all the Apple devices, with the help of iCloud that syncs the information.

How to merge duplicate contacts on iPhone & iPad?

The steps to use the ‘Link Contacts’ feature are:

1. Go to the ‘Contact’ app on your iPhone and locate the contact you want to merge with other duplicate contacts.
2. Click on the ‘Edit’ option on the top right of the window.
3. Tap on the ‘Link Contacts’ option present at the bottom of the screen, along with a ‘+’ icon highlighted in Green color.
4. The next window will appear with all the saved contacts on your iPhone. Locate and select the contact name you want to link the existing contact.
5. Click on the ‘Link’ option on the top right corner.
6. Click on the ‘Done’ option after linking the contact, or you can continue to choose and link multiple contacts.

Following the steps above will link the contacts and make them available in a single entry in the contact app.

You can also choose to unlink these contacts at any time. All you need to do is open the contact you want to unlink and go to the ‘Edit’ option. Next, tap on the ‘-‘ icon highlighted in Red color to unlink.

How to delete duplicate contacts on iPhone and iPad?

You can delete duplicate contacts in two ways. The first is to manually go to the ‘Edit’ section for each contact and delete them. Secondly, you can merge the contacts and delete them all at once.

Linking of the contacts have been talked about in the above section, now let us talk about manually deleting the duplicate contacts on your iPhone. Thus, the steps to delete the duplicate contacts are:

1. Go to the ‘Phone’ app to access the contacts on your iPhone.
2. Locate and click on any duplicate contact that you want to remove from your device.
3. Tap on the ‘Edit’ option present on the top right corner of the screen.
4. Go to the bottom of the next window and tap on the ‘Delete Contact’ option.
5. A confirmation pop-up will appear. Click on the ‘Delete Contact’ option again to confirm your action.

You can delete all your duplicate contacts by following this simple method. These steps work pretty much the same for iPad and iPod Touch as well.

While locating each contact and deleting them individually can be a messy task, you can choose to merge the contacts before deleting them. Another alternative is to download and launch third-party applications like ‘Contact Cleanup’ that’ll make it easy for you to locate and delete the duplicate entries.

Source : Contacts on iPhone