Comments on: Merge & Clear Duplicate Contacts from Address Book and iPhone

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 06:10:49 +0000

I am trying to determine the method used by this merge when duplicate contacts have different information. I am updating a organisation address book. I want to ensure that the new address info is kept during the merge, whilst any extra (confidential) info on the users version is retained.

By: mayuresh

mayuresh — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:58:12 +0000

There is an app on the store named “delete duplicate contacts”…

By: Raffy

Raffy — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 07:09:31 +0000

I still have an “old” (in Apple terms) iPhone 3G, that is still on IOS 4 and can’t be updated to IOS 5. So I can’t use iCloud with the phone and can only sync with to “old” address book “On My Mac”. To keep this up I have to manually check the two address books from time to time and sync “by hand”!!! In this age.

By: Ishmael

Ishmael — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 04:30:45 +0000

what if you have 3 or even more distinctive Jim Smiths?

merge can cause problems all on it’s own

By: Toby

Toby — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 01:34:44 +0000

Doing it wrong . . . hmmmm.

By: Foobar

Foobar — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 19:43:25 +0000

Actually, it’s not a problem, you’re just using it wrong. If you share the same contact between two groups (and why not have the same information for you and your wife for those shared contacts), you should have *one* contact that you can then place in two groups. Not two (duplicate) contacts, one for each group.

If you’re then having the *same* contact for both groups, there is no problem merging information and there will be no duplicate.

By: Toby

Toby — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:24:36 +0000

Be careful *not* to use this tip if you in the same situation that I am: My wife and I share contacts from a master list.

We have a master contact list, and then we have a group called Toby and a group called Laura. Her phone contacts are open to the Laura group, and my phone is open to my group. However, when looking for duplicates, Address Book sees these two groups as duplicates of the main list.

BTW, this is a great way to have one master contact list, but not have to scroll through all the contacts that only your shared partner wants to have on his or her phone, and vice versa.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 08:33:36 +0000

This is one point (as some others), where I get disappointed about Apple! Scenario: you have two different contacts with the same name (first name and surname – yes it occurs!). Press “search for duplicates” and Apple identifies these two contacts as duplicates. Now push “merge” and all information from both contacts are pressed in one v-card without any chance for the user to inspect both contacts visually to confirm!

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:05:23 +0000

Hey Andy and BT

I work for connex.io, and we thought the exact same thing. So we developed a service that automatically syncs, de-duplicates, cleans, completes and updates your address book for you across many different devices and services. You can check it out here: https://connex.io/tour-1-what-does-connexio-do or if you have any advice for us, you can always e-mail me at: michael@connex.io

Michael

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:11:54 +0000

Great question, why isn’t this on the iPhone? Why do we have to resync, delete through another app, then resync again?

By: BT

BT — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:49:24 +0000

I think there was a bug in earlier versions of Contacts where duplicate entries were created when syncing a new phone, it created over 100 duplicates! I used this technique a while back and it fixed it though, why they don’t have this directly on the iPhone is amazing to me!