Duplicates may happen, especially when you import contacts. If you have more than one record for the same person in Contacts on your iPhone or iPad, you can merge them. By merging cards, you can combine contacts and keep all the information in a single contact record. This article explains how you can merge duplicate contacts on iPhone or iPad. This is a great way to clean up your contacts.
Please note that you can easily undo this action, meaning you can unmerge your merged contacts. This article explains that also.
Automatically merge duplicate contacts
Your iPhone or iPad can automatically detect duplicate contacts. If duplicates are found, a notification will appear in the Contacts app. Here is how to use this feature:
- Open the Contacts app on your iPhone or iPad. On iPhone, you can also open the Phone app and tap Contacts.
- Below My Card, look for a message that says Duplicates Found (or All Duplicates). Tap View Duplicates.
- You can tap individual contacts to review them before merging, or tap Merge All to merge all duplicate contacts at once.
This feature works by detecting contacts with the same first and last name. All information from the duplicate cards will be combined into a single contact entry.
Manually link contacts on iPhone and iPad
If two entries for the same person are not detected automatically — for example, if they have different names — you can link them manually. Note that when you link contacts, the contacts are not merged; they remain in their separate source accounts but appear as a single unified contact in your list.
- If this is an iPhone, open the Phone app and tap Contacts. If this is an iPad, open the Contacts app.
- Find your contact that you want to link other duplicate contacts with. Tap that contact.
- Tap Edit.
- Scroll down and find the Linked Contacts section. Tap Link Contacts.
- This will take you to your list of contacts. Find a contact to link. The selected contact will turn grey so you would know. You can use the search field to quickly locate the contact. When you find it, tap it.
- Then tap Link.
- Tap Done.
The two contacts will then appear as a single unified contact entry. Please note that linking does not delete or overwrite any information from either contact. When you link contacts with different first or last names, only one name appears on the unified card. To choose which name appears, tap one of the linked cards, tap the contact’s name on that card, then tap Use This Name For Unified Card.
Unlink contacts on iPhone and iPad
Follow the steps below if you need to reverse a contact link.
- Find the linked contact. And tap it.
- Tap Edit.
- Scroll down and find the Linked Contacts section. Then tap the red minus (-) icon. This will open a red button saying “Unlink”, tap Unlink.
- Tap Done.
