Preliminary operation
Before getting to the heart of the guide and explaining yourself how to delete contacts from iPhone, it seems only right to warn you that, if you have activated the contact synchronization with iCloud, Gmail or another online address book service, the changes you make on the contacts stored on the phone will be automatically reported on the remote server e, therefore, synchronized on all your other devices connected to the same account.
To check and possibly disable contact synchronization with a cloud service, open the app Settings of iOS (theicona dell'ingranaggio located on the home screen) and go to Password and account (on iOS 14 and later you have to go up Settings> Mail or Settings> Contacts). Select, therefore, theaccount of your interest and move on OFF the levetta relative to i contacts. In the case of iCloud, you must also press on iCloud before you can deactivate the contact switch.
How to delete iPhone contacts quickly
Having made the necessary clarifications above, I would say to start "bombshell", seeing how to delete iPhone contacts quickly through the iOS Contacts app and some third-party solutions capable of making this task even easier.
Contacts app
Let's start with the basics, i.e. how to delete contacts on iPhone using the application Contact included “steard” on iOS. This is a fairly limited app: it does not allow you to delete duplicates or delete contacts in series. Either way, it's always good to know how it works.
After starting it (it is the diary icon on the home screen) you will find yourself in front of the list with all the names saved in the address book. To delete one, select it with your finger and tap the button Modification located at the top right.
Then scroll the screen to the bottom, press the button Delete contact and confirm the cancellation of the contact by replying Delete contact notice that appears on the screen. Easier than that?
Cinder
Given the limited functionality of the iOS Contacts apps, it was inevitable that the App Store was teeming with alternative contact management apps.
Among these, I point out Cinder: A free app that, as the name suggests, uses a Tinder-style approach to allow the user to clean the iPhone address book. In a nutshell, once started, it proposes the contacts present on the phone one at a time and asks the user to swipe to the right or left, to mark them, respectively, as to be kept or deleted. The contacts marked as "to be deleted" are put in a separate list e, later, the user can decide whether to delete them all in bulk or to delete only some of them individually.
Before explaining how Cinder works in more detail, however, I would like to make an important premise: the app does not seem suspicious to me in any way from the point of privacy and has also been officially promoted by Apple on its store; however, at the time of writing, your privacy policy is not reachable and therefore it is not possible to exclude a priori that, for example, the contacts examined will end up on remote servers. I repeat, I have no concrete reasons to doubt the good behavior of the app - indeed, almost certainly the contacts remain on the phone and are not communicated to remote servers - but in the absence of official documentation on which to base my statements, it seemed only right to do this to you Premise.
That said, let's take action. After downloading and running Cinder on your "iPhone", grant the app permission for access your contacts and begins to perform swipe to the right to mark the contacts "to be kept" and swipe to the left to mark the contacts "to be deleted".
Next, click on the icon Trash can pop-up at the bottom left and choose whether to delete all the contacts marked as "to be deleted" by pressing the button Delete all present at the top right, or to delete only some of them individually, by pressing the respective button Delete.
ICloud contacts
If you have activated the synchronization of the iPhone address book with iCloud, you can connect to the iCloud.com website and delete the iPhone contacts from there.
All you have to do is log in to the service with your Apple ID, click on the icon Contact and select the names to be deleted using the combination Ctrl + click (o cmd + click on Mac). Next, click on thegear located at the bottom left, select the item Delete from the menu that appears and presses the button Delete, to complete the operation.
Google contacts
If you have decided to synchronize your iPhone contacts with Gmail, you can also "clean" your address book via the Google contacts web panel. All you have to do is turn on the PC and connect to the Google Contacts service, logging in with the account you have also configured on the iPhone.
In the screen that opens, then put the check mark next to names to be deleted from the address book and click first on the ⋮ button located at the top, then on the item Delete present in the menu that opens e, finally, on the button Delete.
How to delete duplicate iPhone contacts
One of the most common problems you can have on your phone is that of duplicate contacts. If you also have it on your iPhone and don't know how to deal with it, here are some solutions that might come in hey.
Clean Contacts
If you want delete duplicate contacts from iPhone, you need to be very careful about the apps you download. On the App Store, in fact, there are many solutions suitable for the purpose but most of them do not protect the user's privacy, since it processes the device's address book by uploading it to remote servers.
My advice, therefore, is to reward the work of more privacy-conscious developers and pay some bucks to have an app that cleans up duplicate contacts without uploading them to your servers or ad servers.
Here then Clean Contacts: an application that allows you to delete multiple contacts at the same time, find duplicates based on various criteria (name, telephone number or email address) and delete potentially useless contacts, as they lack contact details or other important information. It also has a useful built-in backup function that allows you to export your contacts to VCF, CSV or XLS.
The app can be downloaded for free; however, to enjoy unlimited contact cleaning and backup functions, you need to purchase its Pro version at the cost of 3,49 € (via in-app purchase). I repeat, for me it is a more than correct price to pay: much better than giving your contacts "in the meal" to who knows which company for advertising purposes. Also, I remind you that in case you are not satisfied with the app, you can cancel it and request a refund from Apple.
That said, let's take action. After downloading Clean Contacts from the App Store, start the application in question, close the message regarding the respect of privacy practiced by the app and grant it permission to access the contacts. Then make a backup of your contacts: to do this, press on the item Backup of contacts, then on the format in which you want to export (ex. vCard (vcf)) come on Subsequently; then tick the box All contacts, tap on again Subsequently and start creating the backup by pressing the button in the shape of drawers present in basso.
You will be asked to purchase the Pro version app: accept. If you decline (but you can't delete duplicate contacts anyway), you may be offered the option to back up your contacts by watching a commercial anyway. In any case, at the end of the procedure, choose how to share the file obtained: go e-mail, Wi-Fi o dropbox.
When the backup is complete, go back to the main screen of the app, select the item Merge duplicate contacts and choose whether to show duplicates based on contact name, contact phones o emathe contact. Successively, your voice is awarded Select (bottom right) to choose which contacts to keep after merging and press on the item Merge! (top right), to proceed with the unification of all the contacts in the list.
If, on the other he, you want to merge only some of the duplicates found, click on Modification (bottom left) and proceed with the manual deletion of unnecessary contacts by pressing the button negative (-) lead and then on the button Delete corresponding to the latter.
If you really don't want to mess around with your wallet, you can try Cleanup Duplicate Contacts: an app that allows you to delete multiple names in series, delete duplicates and filter contacts based on various criteria: lack of name, lack of phone number, lack of email address and so on.
The application is completely free, however to activate the contact backup function (highly recommended, if you want to avoid the accidental deletion of some names) you need to make a small registration using your email address. Furthermore, it must be said that theapplication collects some of the data it has access to e therefore it is not exactly the best from the point of view of privacy: if you want to know more, conont the privacy notes agolable on this web page.
MacOS Contacts
If you use a Mac and you have activated the synchronization of the address book with iCloud, you can delete contacts and remove duplicates also through the application Contact say macOS.
All you have to do is start the application, select the names to delete (using the combination cmd + click), right click on one of them and select the item Delete tabs give the menu to compare.
To find, and remove, duplicate contacts in the address book, click on the menu Sheet che si trova in alto a left and seleciona la voce Look for duplicates from the menu that appears. Wait, therefore, a few seconds for the scanning of the address book to be completed and press the button Merge, to merge all duplicate contacts.
Google contacts
If you have activated the synchronization of iPhone contacts with Gmail, you can also delete duplicate contacts via the Google Contacts Web panel, naturally logging in with the account you have also configured on the "iPhone by".
If you want to search for, and merge, all duplicate contacts, select the entry Merge and correct from the left sidebar and presses the button Merge it all which is located at the top right of the page that opens.
If you want to merge only some contacts, leaving the others intact, locate the individual contacts to merge and click on the button Merge which is next to the latter.
How to delete iPhone contacts all at once
How do you say? You would like it to delete iPhone contacts all at once? Well, it is a practice that I strongly advise against. In any case, if you really want to, you can proceed by resorting to various solutions that I have already recommended to you in the course of this tutorial.
- Clean Contacts - the application I told you about before, also allows you to delete multiple contacts in series. Just choose the item All contacts on its main page, then the entry Select on the next screen and select all the contacts to delete (there is also the option Select all, to select them all). Finally, you have to press the item Delete (to then confirm).
- MacOS Contacts - if you have synchronized the iPhone address book with iCloud, you can use the macOS Contacts application to delete all contacts by selecting them using the key combination cmd + a, and then proceeding as explained above.
- ICloud and Google contacts - the same speech as above (select contacts via Ctrl + A o cmd + a and then comme its deletion) also applies to iCloud and Google Contacts.
