Contacts Doubling Up

[bolo]

just got over one problem and now have another, albeit less serious one. Have just swapped my provider and suddenly all of my contacts have doubled and in some cases quadrupled. If I delete the first of the two then the second disappears also and I therefore have to re-enter the contact. If I try to delete the second duplicate number, the message that they could not be deleted, only hidden, appeares Chose this and all seemed OK until I pressed on contacts again and the duplicates re-appeared. How can I rid myself of them permanently?  

[Paultuk5668]

Can you not select sim contacts only? If check if no duplicates on your sim then reset your phone and when setting back up use the option as sim only ?

[Annie_N · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure if this is the same as Paultuk5668 is suggesting, but is it that you are being shown the contacts on your SIM and also those on your phone? There should be a setting somewhere to specify which you want to see.

There clearly are advantages in having your contacts in both places, since if one set gets corrupted in any way, the other set is very easily accessible. But you certainly don't want to be seeing both sets all the time!

[bolo]

Not really keen on resetting my phone.

[bolo]

Accessed sim and only 4 of contacts listed there. Changed setting to 'customise' and all contacts bar the 4 on the sim appear. 

[kids]

Are you syncing your phone with an online address / contacts book such as Google or Outlook.

A similar thing happended to me with my iPhone which synced contacts with iCloud and Outlook contacts. In my case with the iPhone there is the option to sync with just one set of contacts.

Does you phone have the option to delete all the contacts on your sim but leave them with the online contacts list? If it does I would delete all the sim contaqcts and then resych with the online contacts list and then opt to display either one or the other

[Paultuk5668]

Maybe the option to manually uncheck the sync lists to google/ outlook / Vodafone sync etc and select sim only? Not sure of which phone you use but you can back up and reset I assume and after reset simply choose the last back up ? I think you ought make certain you don't sync the lists again and uncheck what not needed before, gd luck 👍

[Nabs]

Which device and provider are we talking about here?

[bolo]

Sorry for the lack of detail. Phone is a Vodafone smart ultra 6 and using a combination of the iadvice given here I now have single contacts and a backup on the sim. Thanks guys.:smileywink:

[hrym]

I agree that having at least some contacts on the SIM is a good idea as you can transfer them quickly if your phone fails.  Just remember to keep them up to date.  However, there's also an element of risk if this is the only place you keep them.   SIMs can and do fail and may need to be replaced, if a new device requires a different size, for instance.   There are ways of transferring them (Vodafone shops can do it) as long as you remember.

The advantage of on-device storage is that the number of contacts is unlimited and there are a lot more fields - email addresses especially.   Most devices can synchronise with an online service (Google, iCloud, Sky Drive/Outlook), which gives you immediate transferrability just by logging in.   I wouldn't rely on a single cloud service for backup, though.   Most systems have an export option (I use vCard on Android) and you can keep the resulting (small) file in as many places as you like.  No one ever regretted an extra backup :smileywink:.