Duplicate contacts

Question

I have set up iCloud as the method for syncing contacts with my iphone and Outlook on my PC. I now have contacts duplicated. Some are 2 copies, some are 5 copies. Now Outlook has the same problem since I set up the cloud. How do I gt rid of these dupes on my iphone and in outlook and keep this from happening again. I had some dupes before today, caused by a previous attempt at icloud, but now I have an even bigger mess. If there were no dupes, I have several hundred contacts. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Answer 1

Hey, everyone -
I recently got a (used and thoroughly wiped) iPhone which I spent part of today setting up, using iCloud to bring things like Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Contacts over, and iTunes for the music, books and podcasts.  (Of course, in Mavericks iTunes no longer syncs Contacts, Calendar or Notes.)
When I checked the iPhone this afternoon I saw there were two of all my contacts there!  So, I came here - ASC - to scout out some help, found this thread, used the link above to go to Apple Support, which suggested contacting an Apple Support representative.  Specifically, the instructions say "check your iCloud account; if those contacts are also duplicated, contact Apple Support".  My iCloud Contacts were doubled so I got Apple on the phone.  For about 90 minutes!  Spoke with a rep who had not heard of the issue but worked with me for half an hour, then finally handed me off to her manager.  The manager spent almost an hour with me.  We went through a ton of things, back and forth, turning this on, that off, with her using a program that allowed her to see my screen, and finally got things squared away.  We deleted all the contacts within iCloud from via browser, then repopulated Contacts from the MBPro to iCloud, and then to the iPhone again.
My reason for writing this is two-fold.  First, neither of the people I spoke with had heard anything about this issue.  That sounds odd to me when there's a page devoted to it on the Apple Support site.  There is mention of the problem and two different courses to follow, depending on what the customer sees on iCloud.  But neither representative knew this was happening to people.
Second, I'm not certain either I or the manager at Apple Support I talked with understands how contacts in my Contacts app on my MacBook Pro get to my phone - whether individually or in pairs (duplicates).  The woman I just said goodnight to told me because I use a Google e-mail account Google's servers are not only scraping all my contacts from my Mac (entirely likely, though when I access Gmail on the browser, no contacts are shown there) but the Google servers are also preventing iCloud from syncing with the Contacts app on my Mac.  She said Google takes contacts from my computer, sends them to my Gmail account on my iPhone, which is where iCloud eventually picks them up.  And because of Google's actions, iCloud isn't syncing Contacts from my laptop but getting them from my Gmail account on the iPhone!
You're probably saying "this guy is totally misrepresenting what Apple Support told him".  I don't think I am.  I went back and forth with her on this for a while.  I said it didn't make any sense that I would have iCloud, via System Preferences, set up on my MBPro to sync my contacts but Apple could not access them because Google was taking those contacts instead.
Anyway, if anyone actually knows why iCloud has been duplicating contacts I hope they'll post the reason here so if mine double up again I'll realize why.  I now know how to fix the problem after the fact, but not why it occurred.
- thanks