Duplicate contacts are really common, and they happen when you're syncing contacts from multiple sources like the cloud, your email, or social media sites.
In this video, we'll show you how to use your phone's menu options to merge or remove duplicate contacts.
Let's say you have a colleague's email address saved to a work email account on your phone. You also have her personal number saved in your phone's contact list. Then, you become friends on Facebook, and before you know it, you have three contact listings for the same person!
Looks like it's time for some contact clean up!
Most newer Android phones using the Marshmallow Operating system support the "merge contacts" option. For device specific steps, go to verizon.com/support. Select your device, and click Contacts, then Link/Unlink Contacts.
Here's an example of cleaning up contacts.
To begin, open the Contacts app. Depending on your phone and software version, you'll either see More or a menu icon. Tap one of these to open a list of options.
A dropdown menu appears and if you have any duplicate contacts, you'll see an option to Merge contacts.
Tap it to display a list of your duplicates.
In the example given here, there are two listings for Claire and David. The icons to the right of the contact let you know that these came from different sources.
From this screen, you can merge the contacts by checking the boxes next to the ones you want to combine. If you want to make it easy and merge all the contacts listed, simply tap the All checkbox.
In this particular example, by clicking All, you are merging the duplicate contacts for both Claire and David.
When you return to your contact list, you can see the contacts for Claire and David have been combined into single listings.
This should make it easier to navigate through your contacts and quickly find the one you need.
If you want to edit in the future, simply go to the contact you previously merged, tap More or the menu icon, then tap Manage linked contacts.
You can keep duplicates from showing up in your contacts list by choosing which ones you want to display. In the same menu where you chose to merge contacts, tap Settings.
From here, tap Contacts to Display and decide which contacts you want to see. For example, we'll select Phone to show only the contacts saved to the phone.
Your list may vary depending on which 3rd party services are syncing contacts to your phone.
Another way to minimize future duplicates is to pick one method for backing up your contacts. You can choose to use apps like Google or Verizon Cloud for backup.
If you want additional options, you can always search the Play Store to find a number of apps that will help you keep your contact list organized!
For more help with contact cleanup, check out the videos: Managing Contacts Using Google or Managing Contacts Using My Verizon.
For device-specific help, visit verizon.com/support/troubleshooting
