My iPhone duplicated most of my contacts when I was updating the system. How do I quickly delete all of the duplicates?

My icloud.com contacts keep duplicating, over and over, maybe 8 by now and growing, mostly Microsoft outlook contacts, I think. How do I resolve/stop this? Then, how do I mass delete the duplicates. I do not have a MAc. I have iPad, iPhone, and iCloud on dell desktop?

Hey Lawrence, I think i just figured it out.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/troubleshoot/mobile-devices/duplicate-contacts-in-ios-contacts-app

going to turn the save contacts function off, now i got to purge/clean out my contacts list

Unfortunately, not unless you have a Mac. The Contacts app on the Mac (which can sync with the iPhone contacts) has a function that will merge duplicates.

If the contacts are being saved to iCloud you can go to https://icloud.com, click on Contacts, and delete them there. It should be faster than trying to do it on the phone.

Lawrence, do you know the difference between, PUSH / FETCH / MANUAL when it comes to "Fetch New Data" between iCloud and Exchange accounts?

Exchange in my situation would be the "MASTER/MAIN" source/hub for data

Push will send email to the phone in near real time. It is only available for iCloud accounts and MS Exchange accounts in the built-in Mail app. It is also available for Yahoo and gmail when using the specific apps for those acounts, but not the Mail app.

Outlook also supports Push using the App only

Fetch retrieves mail on a schedule, which you can set.

Manual only retrieves email when you open the Mail app.

You can set FETCH or MANUAL for iCloud and Exchange in the Mail app if you don’t want Push.

My problem seemed to have something to do with Apple vs MS, I think. It seemed to be my Outlook contacts that were duplicating. I was up to 20some on many. I use Outlook app on iPhone and iPad, but Outlook.com on Dell desktop - no Apple Mail (since work requires Outlook). Had all my contacts on iCloud w Apple though. Soooo, I followed a bunch of suggestions which said to make sure contacts were ONLY being accepted from ONE source, for me iCloud - on BOTH my iPhone and iPad. Then I cleaned up my contacts list (using Cleanup Contact Duplicates app), and so far 🤞🤞🤞 it’s holding…. SCARY though!

Sue, You should read this article, i'm pretty sure this is what was happening to both of us. You can find the option in your settings on your Outlook App on the Iphone

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/troubleshoot/mobile-devices/duplicate-contacts-in-ios-contacts-app

btw, that duplicate cleaning app is amazing

If you have a Mac open the Contacts app, then on the Card menu choose Look for Duplicates.

I'm having the same issue. I have like 15 of the same contact and it wont stop. I am on MS365 Enterprise, however, use the Outlook App on my Iphone and not the Iphone Mail App/exchange....

If you are using an MS Exchange account and the Outlook app the problem is on the Microsoft side of things. Are these duplicates in the iPhone Contacts app or in Outlook?

Thanks, that’s a very useful discovery.

Hey Lawrence, is there a quick way to merge/delete duplicate contacts on an iphone/icloud?

I'm not familiar with Apple products, I use windows PC and have a work Iphone. we are on MS 365 exchange

I used a free app Cleanup Duplicate Contacts.

Great, I’ll add that to my list of useful apps. Thanks.