Delete contacts on iPhone
April 11, 2008
Had some issues syncing a colleagues contacts. Basically, his synched with every address book it could find and now he has hundreds of contacts on his iPhone that he doesn’t need. Our first question was, can we delete our contacts on the iPhone itself and the second question was could we mass delete contacts on the iPhone
The answer to the first question is yes. It isn’t very obvious but you need to go to your contacts, select the contact you want to delete. In the upper right hand corner, there is an “edit” button. Once you do that scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “Delete Contact” button. Seems pretty obvious now but wasn’t when your first trying.
The answer to the second question is probably not. Searched the Internet and tried different ways to delete in mass and failed. If you know of any way to mass delete contacts, please leave a comment. It would be greatly appreciated.
Update(7.11.08): After installing the new 2.0 software on my iPhone, it doesn’t look like there is a clear way of mass deleteing contacts throught the iPhone interface. I heard rumors that there would be but it looks like that’s all it turned out to be, rumors. Right now , it seems like you would have to delete them all on the exchange server through OWA or Outlook and the sync. Any ideas?
Update(7.13.08): Looked over the revised iPhone manual and there is no reference to mass deleting contacts from within the iPhone. Looks like we are SOL. Maybe the next software release?
Update (11.25.08): Apple released version 2.2 for the iPhone and unfortunately, it has no remedy for the mass deletion of contacts on the iPhone. Here’s to hoping for the next release.
Update (6.17.09): Apple release version 3.0 for the iPhone and once again, mass delete of contacts is not an option. Copy and paste is finally here but no options for contacts.
Posted in 
April 14th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Simply Jailbreak your device so it no longer is confined! Once you can easily access any and all features of the iPhone that you desire. The iPhone is your device, you must free it from its limited state in order for it to realize its full potential.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I have thought about Jailbreaking the iPhone but we will be using them in an enterprise environment and as of now, don’t feel comfortable tryting to support multiple iPhones that have been Jailbroken. Still an option but not one we are willing to try at this point.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:03 am
To delete your iPhone contacts, simply remove the desired contacts from your app. Address Book on Mac or Outlook on Win. In iTunes, select your device, go to the Info tab, scroll all the way to the botton. Check the Contacts radio button. For one sync, this will cause a directional sync from your computer to your iPhone instead of doing a merge.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Yeah, I mentioned that in the post but the quest for most users is to be able to do this through the iPhone. This is important for the road warriors that don’t have Outlook or address book on the Mac readily available for them.
Thanks for the input!
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 pm
You can mass delete by re-synching ‘Contacts’ in the ‘Advanced’ section of the Info tab in iTunes. Select Contacts under the ‘Replace information on this iPhone’, click Apply and re-sync.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
@Jonahan: Thanks for the suggestion. We are still looking for a way to do it from the iPhone but that will be up to Apple. Cheers!
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I found out how to delete multiple contacts on the iphone, unfortunately you must reset your entire iphone. I had 850 contacts and I got the new 3G. I refused to delete them one by one.
I went to settings on the iphone and then general and then erase all content and settings this deleted all the contacts on my phone and I was able to give my old one to the ubby while I enjoy the new 3G.
Hope this helps. I am so excited that I figured it out.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Thank you for the suggestion. This does seem like it will work and is one of the better suggestions I’ve heard. The only problem, of course, is that you will have to re-enter all of your settings and preferences within your iPhone. If you have a ton of contacts, this would still probably be faster than trying to delete each contact individually. At least we have another option.
Not the fix we need…. yet.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
This is one of the most straight foward blogs I have read regarding the infamous question of “mass deleting” contacts from the iPhone. I am searching for a solution to this problem and was beginning to lose hope with all the blogs I read because they were not clear at all. Although there seems to be no easy, logical, quick solution, I just wanted to say thanks for reassuring me that someone can write clear questions and answers!!!
Cheers!
August 30th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
How to delete all iPhone contacts without resetting everything:
Create a new Windows user account. There will be no contacts in this user’s account. Open iTunes, on the Info tab, Select ‘Sync contacts with Outlook’ , all contacts. Then in the Advanced section at the bottom, select ‘Contacts’ below ‘Replace information on this phone’.
Now click Sync. Since there are no contacts and you’re replacing the ones that are there, the result is No Contacts!
September 1st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
@Juliana – You’re welcome and thank your for reading my blog. Hope to see you here again.
@rjbudz – Thanks for the suggestion. it’s great to see so much out of the box thinking when it comes to this issue.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:27 am
hi i had the same problem so i went to my address book on the computer moved all email acounts to another folder deleted it and synced the phone with the remaining phone number contacts then restored the deleted wile and moved the email addresses back took only 5 mins and worked fine thanks peter
September 13th, 2008 at 1:31 am
sorry to edit my last coment but i could not restore the file i had to select all the emaill addresses and rightclick to copy then add them back in after just right click again and paste then hold return it will add rem all may take couple of minute hope this helps you all peter
September 14th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I culled areplace info on I Phone the duplicates and unused contacts on the mac book pro address book then sync’d with iphone using Advanced (Replace info on this phone) NG I ended up with duplicates!
September 14th, 2008 at 8:35 am
To edit my comment ” I culled deleted and replaced…..”
September 17th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Easy Way (atleast for me, took a few mins.)
Iphone used: 2G on 2.0 should work
Before
I originally synced the phone to the windows address book, which got me way to many contacts from outlook.
How I fixed it.
(Note: This worked because the yahoo email I synced to had like 1 contact on it)
Went to info in the iphone in itunes, changed the sync to “Yahoo address book”, instead of outlook. Itunes prompted me to enter my yahoo email username and password and after that it asked if i wanted to merge or Replace the contacts on my iphone.
Click “replace” to get rid of all ur contacts, as they will be deleted and replaced by the ones in the yahoo address book. Click Merge to add to them.
Sync and done. (After you can go in and take off auto sync for contacts from any address if you like)
Now I know some of you may not have a yahoo email account, then I say get a dummy one. OR
Some of you might say u have way too many contacts on your yahoo email account and to that I say make another dummy account.
Sync the iphone to a yahoomail dummy account (or yahoo acct with a few contacts) and all ur iphone contacts can by replaced when syncing with the yahoo ones. I’m not sure if you need to atleast have one, but I had atleast one and the sync to yahoo address book allowed me to replace a few hundred contacts with 1 from yahoo acct. Hope it helps. Later
September 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I used a variant of rjbudz suggestion and it worked like a charm. In my case, I created a null (that is, empty) Windows Address file, and then changed the preference on the Contacts list in iTunes to this file. When I next sync’ed the Contacts from the computer, it erased all of my unusable contacts copied in a previous sync procedure. After this, I was able to recopy from my original contacts from the SIM by hitting Settings-Mail, Contacts,Calendars-Import SIM Contacts. Had to add any additional settings, but compared to having to erase ~3000 entries, it was best option and seemed better than Erasing All Content and Settings..
October 6th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
i tried all ways, every one of them takes 1 hour. anything faster
October 6th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Not sure. For some, resetting the iPhone to factory defaults or erasing the data will be fast, unless you have a ton of stuff to restore on the phone. Still waiting for that one suggestion that will work for everyone.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
the app syncinablink can clear all iphone contacts and sync with gmail
October 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Thanks taxbax. Looks like a new option for everyone. You can find Sync In A Blink in the APP store in the Utilities section. It will cost you $4.99. Still not sure this will do exactly what everyone wants but if anyone has tried, please let us know your results.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
1) Jailbreak your iPhone to 2.1 with WinPawn or Quickpawn
2) Install Cydia
3) Go at Cydia’s repository and install the small app EraseContacts
run & enjoy
October 27th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
It’s real simple!!!!
1. Just add another contact group in your “contacts” with just one vcard in it.
2. Sync this particular group (via Itunes).
3. Delete the added group as mentioned in step 1.
And voila! Your phone is empty!!!!!!!!
October 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I downloaded Sync in a Blink and it cleared my phone no problem.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:16 am
here you go this is the only one that worked for me. did in less than a min
http://manismani.googlepages.com/outlook_contacts_delete_iphone_sync.PNG
November 4th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I read all about mass deleting contacts…if we reset all contacts will be deleted but does they delete data in iphone (songs and photos etc)
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
hahahaha it’s sO obviouusss!!!! :S I spent like 2 days thinking how.. I went 2 edit & change the persOn.. i said. if i can’t delete it.. i’ll make it someone else i really need.. i feel kind of stupid now! hahahaha
thank U sooooo mucH! 
November 25th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I just opened a empty Outlook contact list (a new one). I named it “Kill_on_iPhone”.
Then I started the sync in iTunes using sync parameter “contacts sync”, “selected groups” and activate only the new Outlook contact list “Kill_on_iPhone”, press “sync” button….
….surprise: my iPhone contact list was empty
November 28th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Thanks TheTruth! I had been looking for a solution to mass delete my iphone contacts, and your suggestion worked great! In itunes, I synced my iphone contacts with an empty Contacts Yahoo address book. Worked great!
December 15th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
The answer provided by TheTruth (about using a dummy yahoo account) was perfect for me. Was able to wipe out 600+ contacts in seconds.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:43 am
create a new profile in outlook, pop3 is easiest. tell oulook to ask for profile each time it opens. open your blank pop profile and sync. this will clear your contacts if you have the settings right in itunes
December 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am
TheTruth spoke the truth. But it acted a little funky at first. The sync to Yahoo made my iPhone empty, but loaded Yahoo with all the contacts from my iPhone. Weird. (I’m using iPhone OS 2.2.) After that I disabled sync to Yahoo, then imported my address book archive, which had the contacts and groups properly defined. Then I re-enabled MobileMe sync, and made sure that my Address Book was syncing with MobileMe. Finally, I used iTunes to sync the iPhone to my contacts. Bam! Five groups (and ONLY five), and all my contacts. Thanks!
January 5th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
There is actually a very easy way to do this from iTunes without deleting any of your other content, and without doing a restart. In that you can synch with either Yahoo or Google email accounts, all you have to do is start a new email – easiest with Yahoo and takes 2 minutes. Once you’ve done that, change your synch from Outlook to Yahoo and input that address & password. Tell iTunes to replace your current contacts rather than merge and since you won’t have any in the new email account your contact list will now be empty… The whole process took me 5 minutes.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
What if I wanted to delete like 50 contacts out of my 300 total contacts and didn’t want to edit -> delete each and every one from the IPhone… Can I use ITunes to select those 50 and delete them all?
February 17th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Regarding deleting all contacts, I did a variation of what rjbudz had done. Instead of creating a new Windows account, I created a empty windows identity (for the windows address book sync). Here are the steps:
1. On your pc type in wab.exe. This brings up the Windows Address Book.
2. File->Switch Identities
3. Click on Manage Identites->New button. Give it a name e.g. EmptyAddBook
4. You should get a prompt for switching to the new EmptyAddrBook identity. Choose Yes.
5. In iTunes->Info tab, choose to sync with Windows Address Book.
6. In iTunes make sure the Advanced tab has Replace Contacts checked.
7. The next sync to your iPhone should clear out all the contacts.
I agree with Juliana, thanks for the putting this straight forward blog entry for a very specific question.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Thank you. I’m glad you have found this helpful. Also, thanks for giving us yet another idea on how to attack this problem. Maybe one day an Apple update will make this post needless.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:58 am
I read all about mass deleting contacts…if we reset all contacts will be deleted but does they delete data in iphone (like phone songs and photos etc)
February 20th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I don’t believe that it will erase your music and pictures if you choose the “Erase all settings” option. But if you choose “Erase All Content and Settings,” I’m pretty sure that will include your songs and photos. I haven’t tried this so if anyone can confirm, that would be great.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
spent about hour on this trying to remove me mates contacts as i got phone from him, it took alot of time, I used this link http://manismani.googlepages.com/outlook_contacts_delete_iphone_sync.PNG
It helped alot! to save you time basicly open up itunes and plug in iphone using a USB able then click on info, On ya iphone then on contacts use outlook express if you dont have it’s allright just make a yahoo dummy account
then add this to ya iphone info and then on itunes go to the edit > Preferences > Devices > Reset sync history.
If asks you to replace info press YES. then okay then scroll down to advanced setting make on iphone via itunes then tick the contacts box and press apply then sync or just sync if you already have applied it. then press contacts on iphone and should all be gone.
March 8th, 2009 at 3:38 am
SOLUTION TO IPHONE CONTACTS DEBACLE: (using Windows Mail in Vista
EITHER:
1. Create a dummy subgroup in Contacts folder. Then when ITunes lists options for Syncing, choose the dummy folder instead of the contacts folder. VOILLA! The IPhone contacts in empty. This assumes you were smart enough not to have Iphones automatically SYNCH on loading.
OR
2. Select all except one name from the Contact folder, the Move them temporarily to a new standby folder with any name but Contact, then load ITunes into the computer to do its SYNCH.
March 18th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
The easy way is to connect it to the computer with which you have Sync. and go the address book make a blank “group” just leave the name “group name” and then sync. the iphone to that “group” in “info” in iTune. You will have have a blank “contact”. Else will be deleted.
Hope this works in MASS DELETION of “Contacts”
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Hi! I see what you all write, but its not what I’m looking for. I have about 130 contacts on my phone right now. Some of them are duplicates of different kind, and some I just wanna get rid of. We’re talking 20-30 contacts maybe up to 50. I wanna be able to delete contacts as I delete mail/sms. Anyone found any soultion to this?
April 6th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Oh my. Thanks so much TheTruth! It also worked for me. Damn. I really don’t know how to mass delete the contacts on my iPhone, but thanks to you! It was so greaat. I’m so glad I have visited this blog. Thanks also. :p
April 12th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
G to Microsoft Outlook
- click on the contacts tab on the left side
- click on a contact
- hold the delete button
- hold until all contacts are gone ( took about 2 seconds for me lol)
Go into itunes when your phone is connected
- go under the “info” tab
- go under contacts
- check off “sync contacts with outlook”
- then click sync at the bottom
- DONE!!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:41 am
I searched everywhere, and thought the simplest way of deleting all contacts from iPhone 3G 16GB would be:
a) Export all contacts from Outlook to a file in your desktop.
b) In Outlook go to Contacts, and then Edit & Select All contacts, and delete them.
c) Sync your iPhone 3G now and it will remove all contacts from iPhone
d) Go to Outlook, and “import” the contacts from Desktop back to Outlook.
Dont sync now with iPhone. You have no contacts in iPhone now.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I want to delete only two names from contact list. Any easier way?
May 12th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
thanks for all of your suggestions! My computer is currently being fixed but when I get it back I am definitely going to try your options.
To Stwbr: you can delete contacts manually on your iphone. All you do is go to the specific contact you want to delete, press edit, and scroll down and there is a Delete Contact button.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
all you do is delete the persons name and whatever has to do with there name and press the center button and they get deleted ive deleted like 5 contacts if u want ill put a video up to show you.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
the video will be on youtube if you want me to put it up
June 19th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Easiest way to mass delete (software 3.0) is to create an empty address book group (no contacts) then go into itunes select only that group to sync then check the replace contacts checkbox. Sync. no more contacts…
June 19th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Just found this from the iPhone’s user manual:
If you entered information on iPhone that you don’t want to sync to your computer Replace contacts, calendars, mail accounts, or bookmarks on iPhone with information from your computer.
1 Open iTunes.
2 As you connect iPhone to your computer, press and hold Command-Option (if you’re using a Mac) or Shift-Control (if you’re using a PC) until you see iPhone in the iTunes Source pane. This prevents iPhone from syncing automatically.
3 Select iPhone in the iTunes Source pane and click the Info tab.
4 Under “Replace information on this iPhone,” select Contacts, Calendars, Mail Accounts, or Bookmarks. You can select more than one, if you like.
5 Click Apply.
Information of the selected type is erased from iPhone and replaced with what’s on your computer. The next time you sync, iPhone syncs normally, adding information you’ve entered on iPhone to your computer, and vice versa.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Want to do it right on the iPhone? You need one app: Funambol.
Under Settings in Funambol, there’s an option to perform “Cleanup”. It’ll remove all of your contacts. It does this to prep for a resync from the Funambol server, but there’s no reason to sync with the server afterwards.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
If you are using MobileMe, you can simply remove the groups by logging into http://www.me.com, go to the Contacts area, and remove the groups manually. The changes will sync to your iPhone with the next sync.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Mass delete contacts on new iPhone (as of 07012009) -
I never used outlook in any carnation nor windows address book, nor any other, i relied on my gmail. I accidently synched my gmail account with iphone contacts list and got all the junk gmail saves. I synced my Phone to a Windows Address Book (WAB) and it improted all the crap from gmail.
Then i opened the WAB via start>acceroies>address book and there they all were. I selected all that I wanted to delete by going down the list and selecting them while holding crtl key and pressed delete. I further edited the names indicating if it were a phone # or email address in the name so when i look at my contacts, i can tell if it is a phone or email.
After editing my WAB, i synced again, without advanced>contacts selected and it over wrote contacts in iPhone with my edits.
Good luck!
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
You can delete unnecessary contacts in bulk if you download “Contacts Cleaner” from Archibald Packwood.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Needed to delete about 1,100 contacts (previous work assignment required I identify callers) without using iTunes or going thru Outlook gyrations. Was not happy paying for an app that provided a function that should have been standard but the ‘contacts cleaner’ did the job though still not a ‘batch’ erase. It took 2 screen taps (which were very easy an fast to make) and all total I spent 5 minutes including downloading the app.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
All you have to do is through Cydia download the app Erase Contacts and it’ll delete all of them at once!!!
July 13th, 2009 at 3:44 am
+1 for “Erase Contacts” on Cydia
July 13th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Like an idiot I just blindly synced my phone up with EVERYTHING on my computer, a 6 year old G4 tower, LOTS of contacts , about 1600 ! I didn’t want to lose all the stuff I had on my phone though before my genius maneuver. SO I read all these comments and came up with this… All my iphone contacts were now on my G4 hard drive. So I just created a new group in my Address Book. I drug all my contacts , about 80 into this new group. Then I selected my iphone in itunes. At the top in the INFO section I selected sync SELECTED GROUPS. Then I chose only my new group that had all my existing iphone contacts in it. Then I went to the bottom in the ADVANCED section and clicked on CONTACTS. This does a one time replacement of the picked information. I took the dog for a walk. When I came back. My phone was all synced up with all the cool stuff I got in the upgrade AND my contacts were back to the manageable size it was originally. The group shows up as individual contacts too , of course. THANKS for all the posts!!!!
July 18th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I went into reset all contents in settings and its for abt more than 5 months that my phone is hanged, its not going further. what does this mean. can any one explain plzzzzzzz
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Roundabout way of wiping all contacts:
1. Create a new, blank, Gmail account.
2. Set up Google Sync to sync to that account as described here: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252
3. During this process, you get an option to wipe the contacts in favor of the Gmail contacts. Since you have none in this new blank account….
Simple.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Okay folks, there is an easy way to mass delete your contacts on your iphone and here it is.
1)open your outlook, select contacts. From the edit tab, select all.
2)cut copy and paste them to a word doc and save it for later.
3)delete all your contacts in outlook(don’t worry they’re saved in a word doc remember)
4) add one contact to keep your iphone happy that it’s copying something.
5)In itunes select info and switch contacts to outlook.
6) Scroll down and select contacts from the advanced section in your info tab.
7) Sync and it’s done, only one contact to delete from your phone.
Put your sim card back in and copy contacts from your sim in settings menu.
Obviously cut copy and paste your contacts back into outlook and don’t forget to uncheck the sync contacts box in the info tab on itunes.
Done. A simple thank you will do.
August 8th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Another Easy-peasy solution ….sorry if already covered in previous posts
1) Right click on contacts in Outlook and create new folder (any name)
2) Info tab in itunes – tick “Sync Contacts with” and click on “Selected Groups”
3) In the window below this, Select/tick the name of your new dummy contacts group and unselect any others
4) Click Apply down the bottom and you should be in business
August 20th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for all the info, sorry to say that we all had to turn to the web for answers to this issue, the folks at the “ATT Store” weren’t much help to me and the Apple iPhone online help and manual are 3rd grade for such a sophisticated device…. That rant said
Following the advise found here, setting up a new folder in outlook with one contact in it as described above quickly and easily does it.
I set up 2 flolders in Outlook, iPhone business and iPhone personal. The phone synced fine and set up 3 groups, 1 “all contacts”, a merger of the 2 iPhone folders and 1 each of the busines and personal folder.
September 10th, 2009 at 10:14 am
To mass delete all entries from your iPhone that were synced from an account:
1) Settings
2) Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3) Select Account (me.com, yahoo.com, etc)
4) Turn Contacts Off
4) Select “Delete from My iPhone”
If you then turn Contact On, you will be asked if you want to merge entries. If you merge the entries, then they will not be duplicated.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Hi guys:
I have upgraded my iPhone2g to 3.0.
Before upgrading I made a backup of my contacts
through iPhone explorer. (simply Made backup of .db files from
var/mobile/library/AdressBook)
after upgrading to 3.0 from 2.2.1 I put the backuped files back to
the directory where these were in 2.2.1.
It is working sucessfuly, the problem I m facing is
if add or delete contacts it doesn’t effect the database
after refresh added contacts are deleted and deleted contacts are undeleted
I m in big trouble. Pls help me guys I m waiting for your replies.
If anyone knows pls mail me at this id
Scorpio_thescorpion@yahoo.com
or simply reply to my bug.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Its really easy
Simply make a second ID on your outlook express which has no emails or contacts. Go to Itunes, and check “Sync with Outlook” or whatever it says, then let it process. Doing so wipes all your contacts (starts afresh) – then just add the ones you want after.
I had 937 email contacts to shift through individually….so i did this and just added back 20 numbers. Saved one hell of a lot of time…
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:23 am
does anyone know how to erase the email contact popup. i have email addresses that pop up when i got to type an email address. how do you erase that memory of emails or how is it recognizing it
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:24 am
how do you erase or stop the auto email window that pop ups when typing email address. can it be erased removed or what.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Folks, I suggest using itunes to mass delete. Here’s what worked for me on 3Gs iphone.
1: Connect your iphone to your MAc-you should see your iphone icon on itunes. Log in.
2. Go to ‘info’ on itunes, scroll down to ‘contacts’ and select synch with ‘yahoo address contacts’, then go and delete your yahoo contacts. I did this as I don’t use their mail service anymore,
3. Finally go to the last section ‘advanced’ and chose the option to ‘replace info on iphone and select ‘contacts’. Itunes then asks you if it’s Ok to overwrite the contacts on your computer with the contacts from yahoo, say and yes. This erases all the contacts in itunes, which then replaced the info on your iphone with zero contacts! Voila!
If you are worried that the process will wipe out the contacts in your entourage (Mac), pl don’t because all my entourage contacts are intact..
October 7th, 2009 at 10:08 am
how can i delete one phone number on my iphone. when you try deleting missed calls it deletes all of them.
October 11th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Great blog, actually found the answers I needed after browsing through various sites. Thank you¡
October 21st, 2009 at 10:29 am
thanks vikram…i was very curious to know how to delete those contacts….all other ways were not working….thanks a lot!
October 29th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I have an even easier solution if you use Address Book to manage your contacts:
1.) create a new Group in Address Book. put one random contact in there
2.) connect your iphone to your mac
3.) go to ‘info’ on itunes, scroll down to ‘contacts’ and select “sync with selected groups”
4.) go to the last section ‘advanced’ and chose the option to ‘replace info on iphone and select ‘contacts’.
5.) click “apply” or “sync”
6.) booyeow. you’ll have just the one contact in your phone which you can then delete manually.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Best way is go to info on itunes and give a fresh yahoo or google email id in “sync contacts with” and say sync. It will ask for merge or replace. Then choose replace. works!!!
December 19th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Most commonly you would want to clear all contacts in the iPhone and re-sync with contacts in Outlook.
In iTunes select your iPhone under DEVICES from the left column.
Click on Info tab. Go down to Advanced section and select Contacts under “Replace information on this iPhone”
Click on Apply and click on Sync. This will clear all contacts on your iPhone and replace with the contacts in Outlook.
Don’t forget to uncheck the above Advanced selection and click on Apply.
Good practice: In Outlook create a new sub-folder under Contacts by the name of IPHONE.
In iTunes, Info tab, under Contacts click on “Add contacts created outside of groups in this iPhone to”, select IPHONE from the drop down menu. This will capture any contacts that are stored in iPhone contacts that do not belong to any Group in the IPHONE folder in Outlook.
January 5th, 2010 at 4:56 am
HERE IS THE SOLUTION
http://manismani.blogspot.com/2008/03/delete-all-contacts-from-iphone-using.html
January 6th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I have to add something here that I didn’t see addressed *specifically*. I use Outlook and Exchange through my office. At first, Exchange was taking too long to sync my contacts and calendar (as are options when using Exchange to connect to your Outlook) so I synced directly (using itunes) from my laptop as many have discussed in this thread. The problem arose when Exchange finally synced and I had double contacts and calendar events (still working on the dbld up calendar events). I wanted to delete JUST the contacts that I had directly synced and not my Exchange contacts. So for those of you out there in this situation/predicament, I did as many of these have suggested, I added a new group under contacts and made a bogus contact. I had previously turned off syncing my contacts and calendar since exchange was taking care of it now. So I again turned on syncing with Outlook contacts, chose the the NEW bogus group and it removed all of the duplicate contacts (keeping the Exchange contacts). I then turned off syncing contacts (and hit apply). Then I immediately deleted the bogus contact and then the bogus group. This took care of the problem with only ONE complaint: (and yes this is being finicky), I still have the group listed on my iPhone even though it’s gone/empty. I wish that could be deleted too (minor complaint). This probably was simple enough that it wasn’t mentioned but I thought it would be helpful.
Thanks to all of you for the options (and yes it worked quickly and simply).
B
January 7th, 2010 at 10:34 am
set up a new gmail account that has no contacts. Change the settings on your iTunes to synch with gmail contacts and provide empty account. select ‘replace information on this sync only’ under the advanced options. Sync it to the empty account. Your contacts are gone.
January 10th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
My iphone has started to autofill email addresses which it has taken somehow from a gmail account which I use. Previously when I deleted the account from settings>accounts>name@gmail.com>delete , then the email cache relating to that account would delete the account contacts which didn’t subsequently appear in autofill until I added the account back again. I phoned Apple support who weren’t very helpful and just told me that autofill is a good thing.
I’m not technically confident at all.
Is this a permanent change, or some sort of misbehaviour on the part of my phone?
I need to get rid of that cache as a matter of urgency as I share the phone with my child and the email addresses relate to a personal issue which I am not wanting to share with him right now… fortunately it’s not this particular issue, but for example help@cancer.org for example would be a bit of a giveaway. Also I need to keep the phone bug free and without support issues with Apple and O2.
As the need to use the email contacts is likely to be ongoing, I would appreciate any guidance sorting this out.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I ended up with almost 6000 contacts deleted when I repaced it with a Gmail synch
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:43 am
You can mass delete by doing the following. 1. In outlook create a new contacts folder 2. in itunes sycn click “Info” and select only the new contacts folder. 3 Sync. Because the new contacts folder is empty it will remove all contacts on your iphone. 4. Sort your contacts out in Outlook then change the sync folder back to the one you want to sync with and run the sync again.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Two thumbs up for app: “ERASE CONTACTS” on CYDIA, was super quick and simple. Just download from Cydia and run. Whole process 1min.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Funambol is an app thats not from cydia that deleltes apps.. just make up a name then go to settting and hit clean up.. simple as that