The presence of duplicate contacts on iCloud not only affects the storage space, but it also leads to a needless clogging of the contact list. The contact list gets needlessly populated with useless repetitive and sometimes the user ends up calling the wrong number or even the wrong person altogether! Thus, it is very important for the user to clean up duplicate contacts from iCloud, the sooner the better.
If you’ve discovered some duplicate files on your Windows/ Mac, Clone Files Checker can easily scan and delete them without much fuss. And the best part is it can look for all kind of duplicate files, and it is extremely light in consuming system resources.
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Luckily enough, the procedure to do so is a very simple one. And even better is the fact that it is provided by none other than the masterminds behind iCloud, namely Apple!
Remove Duplicate Contacts in Mac
You can delete duplicate contacts from iCloud.com either through Mac or through iCloud’s web storage. To do so, download all the contacts onto your PC and then follow these steps:
- To begin with, backup all the contacts.
- Open Contacts in Mac.
- Select Card | Look for Duplicates to scan for any duplicate entries.
- If any duplicates are detected, you will get an option to either Merge them or Delete them.
Remove Duplicate Contacts in iCloud
You can also delete any duplicate contacts files directly from iCloud. However, following this route means you do not have the luxury to merge the contacts as iCloud only allows contact deletion.
- Simply login to your iCloud account.
- Select any contacts that look duplicate while holding down the ⌘ key as you’re selecting the contacts.
Note: In iCloud, you need to detect any duplicate contacts by manually comparing contact names and most importantly contact numbers. Therefore, pay high attention to what you’re doing or else you could end up doing more harm to your contacts than any good.
Remove Duplicate iCloud Contacts through iPhone
Just like iCloud, using an iPhone also requires you to go through your contacts and delete any duplicates manually. As of now, there isn’t a function that can help find duplicate contacts in an iPhone. A handy trick in this scenario is to export all of the contacts to either your Mac or iCloud.com, where you can scrutinize them much easier than on an iPhone.
Merge or Delete?
Please keep in mind that iCloud.com doesn’t allow you to merge any contacts. This is only possible for Mac. If you want to merge any contacts, simply export them to Mac. On the other hand, if you are really sure of deleting some contacts, you can proceed to do so via iCloud.com.
Removing Duplicate Contacts by Merging
Another way to remove duplicate contacts in iCloud is by merging all similar ones. Again, the procedure is very simple. Here it goes:
- Select two similar contacts together by using the Command key on the keyboard.
- Now select Cards | Merge Selected Cards (This will merge all the data within those cards).
- You can also use Shift + Command + L to do the same.
Link Contacts from Other Accounts with iCloud
You can link contacts together from Gmail/ Yahoo to iCloud through a fairly simple process.
- Reveal the bar that shows the contact list from different accounts by pressing Command + 1.
- Now merge both the contacts by selecting them manually and then selecting Cards | Link Selected Cards.
Note: Your contacts will still be available from the accounts they were fetched from, but they will only be shown as a single entry in Cards.
While removing duplicate accounts from iCloud, the best practice is to first merge all contacts in the iCloud contact list and then move towards linking contacts from other accounts. This ensures that you are left with a unified database of contacts.
