How to Delete Duplicate Contacts on iPhone: 3 Easy Ways

This article will show you step-by-step how to delete duplicate contacts on iPhone. As your list of contacts grow, it’s likely to become less easy to manage and organize your contacts. Duplicate contacts are one of the common issues. You may end up with duplicate contacts on your iPhone due to contacts migrations and imports. Regardless of the cause, it’s important to find and eliminate duplicate iPhone contacts. There are three common ways to do this.

Method 1. Delete duplicate contacts on iPhone with ContactsMate

Applies to: macOS 10.11 or later

Mac users can use contact management software ContactsMate to effortlessly find and remove iPhone duplicate contacts. The app can offer the following benefits.

• Delete duplicate contacts on iPhone and other places like Mac, iCloud, Outlook, etc.
• Identify different types of dupes like Exact Duplicate Contacts, Duplicate Name, etc.
• Offer multiple solutions like Delete/Merge/Edit/Ignore Duplicate Contacts
• Work with different iPhone models and iOS versions like iPhone 6, 6S Plus, 7, 8, X, XS Max, XR, SE, 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, iOS 13, iOS 11 and more
• Scan for other issues as well like Incomplete Name, Blank Name, etc.
• Also let you easily export iPhone contacts to 8 formats and import contacts from various services/files
• Provide other benefits like smooth syncing (with support for various services), 1-click backup and restore, easy viewing and editing, etc.

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How to (mass) delete duplicate contacts on iPhone quickly

Let’s start by download and installing ContactsMate. When you launch the app for the first time, it will ask for permission to access your Mac Contacts. Click OK to continue.

Step 1. Sync iPhone contacts with iCloud. If you have already done this, skip to the second step.

If not, you need to set it up. On your iPhone, tap your name in Settings and tap iCloud. Turn on Contacts.

Step 2. In ContactsMate, click Add Account in the toolbar, and the Internet Accounts window will show up.

Select iCloud in the column on the right. Sign in to it. Make sure that you select the checkbox next to Contacts. Close the Internet Account window.

Step 3. Quit the app and launch it again. Now you can find a contact group named iCloud on the left sidebar. You can find all your iPhone/iCloud contacts in it. Select the group and click Scan in the toolbar.

Step 4. In the Conflict Resolution window that appears, you can find the iPhone duplicate contacts on the left. They are displayed by type like Duplicate Name, Exact Duplicate Contacts, etc. For each type, the available solutions may be different. To delete duplicate contacts on iPhone, select a solution and click Fix or Fix All in the bottom right corner.

Now the duplicates are gone. The changes will be automatically detected and synced to iCloud Contacts and iPhone Contacts app.

This is how to quickly find iPhone contacts that are exactly the same or partially the same and get them deleted or merged, individually or in bulk.

Tips

• You can tweak settings in Preferences before clicking Scan. From the top menu bar on your Mac, select Cisdem ContactsMate > Preferences. Go to the Conflicts tab. There, you can set the app to identify or ignore specific type(s) of duplicates when it scans for duplicate contacts on iPhone. It offers flexibility and lets you take control.
• Before you delete duplicate contacts on your iPhone, it's a good idea to backup your iPhone contacts first. It only takes a click to backup (and restore if necessary). In ContactsMate's Preferences, go to the Backup & Restore tab. Select iCloud on the left sidebar and click the Backup button at the bottom of the window.
• The app supports Mac Contacts and all popular services and platforms such as iCloud, Outlook, Google Contacts and Exchange. You can use it to efficiently remove duplicate contacts from the supported places. It’s also easy to eliminated duplicate contacts in VCF and CSV files.

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Clean up and manage your contacts in a breeze

Method 2. Delete iPhone duplicate contacts with Cleanup Duplicate Contacts

Applies to: iOS 10.0 or later

How do I eliminate duplicate contacts on iPhone? You can also do it directly on your iPhone. There are a number of third-party apps that can do the job. Cleanup Duplicate Contacts is one of them. As its name shows, it’s designed for the purpose of duplicate contacts removal. This address book cleaner app is available for iPhone and iPad.

Step 1. Download the app to your iPhone and install it. A message will pop up asking for access to your contacts. It gives a brief instruction on how to grant access in Settings. Tap OK to close the message and do as the instruction says.

Step 2. Tap Analyze, and it will start looking for duplicates in your contacts. Once it finishes scan, you will be presented with the scan results.

Step 3. Tap Review Duplicates. Now you can take a close look at the duplicates and handle them. If you tap Filter in the bottom right corner of your iPhone screen, you can quickly filter different types of dupes such as Partial Duplicates On Name.

Step 4. Tap Merge in the top right corner, and it will start merging duplicate contacts on iPhone. This is how you can get rid of the annoying duplicates. It’s pretty straightforward.

This method also comes with an easy backup solution. Before tapping Analyze, you can tap Backup to quickly backup the contacts on your iOS device.

Method 3. Delete duplicate contacts on iPhone with Google Contacts

Applies to: Windows, macOS

It’s also possible to get rid of duplicate contacts on iPhone using Google Contacts.

Step 1. It’s the same as in the first method. Sync the contacts on your iPhone to iCloud.

Step 2. Visit iCloud on your web browser. Click Contacts, and you will be led to a new page. There, you can find all your iPhone contacts. Click the gear icon in the bottom left corner and choose Select All. Click the icon again and select Export vCard. It will start saving your iPhone contacts to your computer.

Step 3. Sign in to your Google account and go to Contacts. In the column on the left, click Import. In the box that appears, click Select file and upload your iPhone contacts. Click Import.

Step 4. The imported iPhone contacts will appear and be automatically tagged with the import date, say, Imported on 5/20.

Step 5. Click Merge & fix in the left column, and it will find and list the contacts with duplicate listings.

You can choose to merge individual or multiple iPhone duplicate contacts. There is a Merge all option. If you click Dismiss, the specific iPhone duplicate contacts will be ignored.

Step 6. Click Export. In the Export contacts box, select all your iPhone contacts by choosing the related label from the dropdown list. Choose to export them as vCard. Click Export.

Step 7. Visit https://www.icloud.com/contacts/ again. Click the gear icon and import the vCard file you've just exported from Google.

Now the duplicate-free contacts will be automatically synced to iPhone.

Conclusion

Above are the three easy ways on how to delete duplicate contacts on iPhone. As far as I’m concerned, the first method is the best. By getting ContactsMate, you will be provided with powerful solutions to deduplicate and to easily manipulate contacts of various sources. It features accurate algorithm and offers enough ways for you to deal with dupes. Regardless of the method used, it’s recommended to do the backup prior to the deletion. Once the duplicates are removed from your iPhone Contacts, it will become easier to view, search and manage your contacts.