How to Delete Contacts on Your iPhone

Delete an individual contact or multiple contacts at once

screenshot of iphone contacts app

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by Sam Costello
Sam Costello has been writing about tech since 2000. His writing has appeared in publications such as CNN.com, PC World, InfoWord, and many others.
Updated November 04, 2018

Whether you use it for keeping track of work contacts, friends and family, or both, your iPhone's address book can fill up fast. And, from time to time, you'll want to delete contacts from your iPhone that you no longer need. When the time comes to do that, deleting just one or two contacts is pretty easy, though there are a couple of ways to do it. Trying to delete multiple contacts at the same time, though, is a tougher task. Luckily, we've got tips.

How to Delete A Single Contact on iPhone

screenshot: deleting contacts on iphone
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If you've got a single contact you need to delete from your iPhone, the process is quick and easy. Just follow these steps.

  1. Open the pre-installed Contacts app and skip to step 3, or Tap the Phone app to open it.

  2. In the Phone app, tap the Contacts icon at the bottom.

  3. Find the contact you want to delete. You can do this by browsing your contacts or searching using the bar at the top.

  4. Once you've found the contact to delete, tap the name.

  5. When viewing the contact's screen, tap Edit.

  6. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen and tap Delete Contact.

  7. If you change your mind and want to keep the contact, tap Cancel. Otherwise, to finalize the deletion, tap Delete Contact.

How to Delete a Single Contact in iCloud

screenshot: deleting contacts in iCloud
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Your iPhone may not be the only place you store your contacts. If you use iCloud and have it set to sync your contacts to other iCloud-compatible devices, your entire address book also lives in the cloud. So, if you prefer to delete contacts from iCloud directly, rather than on your iPhone, you can. Just follow these steps:

Remember, deleting a contact at iCloud will delete it from the all devices you've set up to sync contacts with your iCloud account. This is true whether you delete the contact from iCloud or on your iPhone. It's a great and easy way to make sure the contacts on all of your devices are the same.

  1. In a web browser, go to iCloud.com.

  2. Log into iCloud using your Apple ID.

  3. From the main iCloud screen, click Contacts.

  4. Find the contact you want to delete by browsing or searching.

  5. Click on the contact you want to delete.

  6. Click Edit.

  7. Click Delete Contact.

  8. In the pop-up window, click Cancel to keep the contact or Delete to get rid of them for good.

You can also use iCloud to delete multiple contacts at once. To do that, follow the first four steps above. Then, holding down the Command key (on a Mac) or the Control key (on a PC), click all the contacts you want to delete. Then click the Delete key on the keyboard and Delete in the pop-up window.

How to Delete Multiple Contacts on iPhone

Believe it or not, there's no way to delete multiple contacts at the same time on the iPhone. It's just not a feature built into any of the apps that come pre-loaded on the iPhone. Luckily, there are apps that offer this feature. A few solid options for deleting multiple contacts include:

You may not be able to delete multiple contacts at once on the iPhone (without extra apps, at least), but you can do it from a computer – if you sync your iPhone with a computer. If you want to delete a group of contacts from your iPhone, first delete them in the contacts program you use on your computer (Contacts on Mac, Outlook or Windows Address Book on Windows). Then sync your iPhone to your computer and the contacts removed from the computer will be delete from the iPhone, too.