How to quickly find and delete duplicate contacts on iPhone and iPad

While iCloud does a pretty good job of organizing and managing our contacts, sometimes things can go wrong. Even if you don't use iCloud, contact management is far from perfect. One of the most common issues people experience is duplicate contacts. You can obviously go through one by one and delete them but if there's a lot, that's not a practical solution. Luckily, there are some App Store apps that help you clean up duplicate contacts in only a few seconds.

1. Download Smart Merge from the App Store — Free - Download Now


2. Launch Smart Merge and follow the prompts in order to create a login.


3. Smart Merge should automatically start scanning your contacts once you've granted access.


4. Tap on Show Duplicates in order to show them.


5. Tap on Duplicate Contacts in the first section to expand them.


6. Tap on the Info button next to contacts Smart Merge has flagged in order to review changes.


7. If you find a contact that you do not want to be merged or deleted as a duplicate, tap on it to deselect it.


8. Once all the contacts that are duplicates or need to be merged are selected, tap on Merge at the bottom.

I highly suggest reviewing duplicates before merging since sometimes you may have a contact with the same name that isn't actually a duplicate. Smart Merge offers a lot of other useful features such as contact backup options and the ability to sort contacts and filter them in ways the built-in Contacts app doesn't allow.

I recommend Smart Merge because it's got a lot of useful features but remains easy to use when it comes to deleting and merging duplicate contacts. However, I know there are lots of other apps out there that also have the ability to delete duplicate contacts, so if you've found a particularly good one, feel free to drop its name in the comments!