MacMost Q&A Forum • View All Forum QuestionsAsk a Question

How Do I Get My Contacts In Order?

A friend wrote me a couple of days ago and wondered why she hadn’t had any emails from me. I have a group I call “regulars” and her name had disappeared from the list! I went into contacts to correct that, and although her name was not on my regulars list, in the all contacts list she was listed four times! When I checked, so were a lot of other contacts! What’s going on? Any suggestions as to how I can fix this without spending hours doing it?
—–
Jeanette Marlow

Comments: 4 Responses to “How Do I Get My Contacts In Order?”

    6 years ago

    One possible explanation for multiple entries is that you have multiple contact databases from multiple accounts. This could happen, for instance, if you have an iCloud account and a Gmail email account and use both on your Mac. Then you'll see all contacts from both mixed together. I solve this by only storing contacts in my iCloud account, even though I have a Gmail account too.

    There are lots of other reasons why it could have happened, such as turning off iCloud at some point and opting to keep all of the contacts on your local machine, and then turning it back on so you then have iCloud and the local copies.

    Either way, it is just a matter of taking the time to go through them and delete true duplicates, combine those those are for the same person, but with different information (like one for phone number and another for email) and deleting ones you don't need anymore. Just a little maintenance work for a few minutes here and there should do the trick.

    Jeanette Marlow
    6 years ago

    Thanks Gary, it amazes me that you would answer me so promptly, and on a Saturday afternoon! I appreciate your help, and thank you so much. I'm learning so much from your videos...

    Jeanette Marlow

    Jesse the K
    6 years ago

    I have not been careful about my Contacts hygiene. I now have a mess! There are four copies of each contact. Is there any software that can do some of the work to clean them up: merge identical duplicates, but not ones that have any differences. Show four cards side-by-side and highlight the most-recently entered value in each field?

    6 years ago

    Jesse: Even if there were software to do this, I wouldn't trust it to "read your mind" and figure out what information to keep, what to throw away, and which ones to merge. I think the best solution is to spent a little time here and there to clean it up manually. Even if you have hundreds of contacts, it should only take a few sessions of a few minutes a piece.

Comments Closed.