How can I delete all "hidden" contacts in iCloud?

Here's my problem. iCloud stores old contacts, maybe ones I emailed once or twice. I heard of this issue months ago, and to remedy, all I could do was reset my phone and keep iCloud shut off so that it didn't store these old contacts.
Anyway, when I moved to ios7, I forgot this, and turned on iCloud as I got set up. I put my Gmail account in as normal. When I went to compose an email and typed in a couple letters of the person I was intending to write (from my Gmail contacts) I saw them, as well as a host of other old emails and knew it was iCloud. I confirmed this when I went into iCloud Web, which that email acct. I never used and is ermpty, and typed in the contacts in a compose message and voila, all these names appeared.
For my phone, I had to reset it again and make sure to keep iCloud off so I don't see those contacts, but this is a big issue - Apple is storing these old contacts that I want obliterated. There are personal reasons I deleted those contacts, and in the case of iCloud, it imported an address book from an old employer and none of those folks I ever want to see again.
Same for texting on the phone, I've noticed that if you delete a contact, they still live in the phone. I don't understand why we can't obliterate these. I don't get why Apple is insistent on us keeping these old contacts in our lives...

Have you already tried to delete the contacts with the following steps:
1. sign in at www.cloud.com
2. open "Contacts"
3. click on the little "Settings" cog wheel icon in the lower left hand corner
4. choose "select all"
5. and then choose "delete"

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HT5824 How can I delete all my contacts from icloud with a single command?

I would like to delete all my contacts from iCloud so when I synchronize with my other devices, the one I already have don't be duplicated or deleted

If you delete all your iCloud contacts, then enable contact syncing with your other devices, the empty iCloud contacts are likely to overwrite the contacts on your other devices and you will lose them.
Do you have a master list of contacts on one of your devices that you are trying to replace the iCloud contacts with?

How do I delete all my contacts in Icloud so that I can start over?

How do I delete all the contacts in Icloud so that I can start over, as if I never used Icloud before?

There is an option, under Advanced, on the Info Pane in iTunes to replace all contacts on your phone with what's on your computer for the next sync only. So, edit everything on your computer & use that method.

How do i delete all my contacts on icloud

how do i delete all my contacts on icloud

Go to icloud.com on your computer, sign into your iCloud account, open your contacts, click on a single contact, press control-A to select all contacts, press the Delete key on your keyboard. Do this for all groups to be sure you get them all. Note: if any of your devices are signed into this account with contact syncing set to on, this will also delete the contacts from your devices.

How can I delete all my contact card "custom images"?

Hi,
My contact images have been (mysteriously) randomly mixed... I just can't delete them one by one because there are hundreds and hundreds of them.
How can I delete them all?
This situation is also verified in my iCloud contacts, which is obvious since my computer, iPhone, iPad and iCloud are all synced together.
Thanks in advance!

Go to SETTINGS, then ACCOUNTS AND SYNC select facebook and uncheck sync contacts and then do the same for yahoo.
back up contacts w/ backup assistant that is under accounts and sync.
then go back to SETTINGS then APPLICATIONS then MANAGER APPLICATIONS then ALL select PEOPLE then clear data. this will erase your contacts so make sure you have it backed up.
then go to SETTINGS then ACCOUNTS and SYNC then backup assistant and sync now and this should put all your contacts back on your phone without being relinked to facebook or yahoo at least i remember it being something like this when i was trying to get rid of facebook being linked to my contacts on my Tbolt.

I have plenty of duplicated contacts in I cloud. How can I delete all the contacts in the cloud and resynchronize

I synchronized my contacts from my PC to I cloud. Unfortunately the contacts from I pad and I phone were also synchronized which gives me plenty of duplicates. How do I delete all of my contacts in I cloud to resynchronze and have the contacts only once in the I cloud.
Thank you for your valuable information. I am sure I am not the only one.

I have two groups on the iphone that were automatically generated: icloud and "on my mac".
when I erased all contacts on the computer and synchronized it with the phone, it only synchronized the icloud contacts but no the ones on my phone under "on my mac". so how can I get them into the icloud group....
thx

How can I delete all my contacts in Address Book?

I had syncing issues between my Entourage 2008 contacts, my Address Book contacts, and the PowerMac for Blackberry application. As a reference, I have around 5,000 contacts. I have solved the issue, but there is some collateral damage: read on.
Address Book duplicated my contacts two or three times, and it also created around 60,000 empty contacts. I have been able to clean the Entourage contacts, which only suffered from duplication but not from new empty entries.
I tried to delete the Address Book duplicate and empty entries. The easy way out, I thought, was to Select All and delete. It does not work. Given I have ended with around 80,000 contacts, after I Select All, and try to delete, the program hangs, and I have to Force Quit the Address Book application.
I tried to locate the Address Book file where contacts are stored, but I have not found an obvious name that would point to it, nor have I read anything about such file in the different discussion forums. So no success on this.
I have even used scripts in the past for deleting duplicates and merging contacts in Entourage, but I have not found one for Address Book that could take care of the massive number of empty entries with "No Name".
So, is there a way to delete all my contacts in Address Book?

There are two possibilities you can try:
1. Delete all your duplicate entries. You can try downloading and running this Applescript Remove Duplicates, which will create a group named Duplicates in Address Book, from which you should be able to delete those entries, by selecting the Group, then in the next column to the Right, select all the entries and choose Delete Cards from the Edit menu.
2. If that doesn't work, you can do this:
1. Quit Address Book if it's running.
2. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and delete an of these files/folders you find there:
• ABPerson.skIndex
• ABPerson.skIndexInverted
• Address Book - xxxxx.abbu
• AddressBook.data
• AddressBook.data.beforesave
• AddressBook.data.previous
• Images
• LastImport.plist
3. Restart Address Book and see if the default cards are there (Apple card, and your Me card) and if all seems to be working correctly.
Mulder

How can I delete all my contacts from the icloud?

I've been working with Apple's sometime, and now I have been forced to use iCloud after MobileMe.
After syncing a couple of devices, some things went quite wrong. My iCloud contacts are now a complete mess. I have lots of duplicates. And over 8000 contacts.
What I want to do is, is do a cleanup, and clear all the iCloud contacts, and import a new 'clean' address book from 1 mac to the icloud, which then in it's turn can be synced to all the devices?
Is dit possible? I've noticed deleting manually is a pain, because the browser doesn't really allow more then 50 contacts or so at a time, before the browser freezes.

Go to your Contacts on your Mac - if more than one pick the most accurate; delete any contacts you don't want. Select all the contacts, and from the File menu choose 'Export...'>'Export vCard'. Save the resultant file safely: it will be your 'master' list.
Now delete all the contacts from whichever device has the most in it. Sync with iCloud. If necessary repeat with different Macs. The result should be that the deletions sync to iCloud and in the end you finish up with empty Contacts lists everywhere.
Now you can import your saved file to one of your Macs. Make sure you import it under 'iCloud' not 'On My Mac'. Then it should propagate iCloud and any other devices. Keep the saved file at least until you are satisfied that all is in order.

I would like to know how can I delete all my contact that have been linked from yahoo and facebook? Help!!!!

Please help me It is drivng me crazy having all these contacts

Go to SETTINGS, then ACCOUNTS AND SYNC select facebook and uncheck sync contacts and then do the same for yahoo.
back up contacts w/ backup assistant that is under accounts and sync.
then go back to SETTINGS then APPLICATIONS then MANAGER APPLICATIONS then ALL select PEOPLE then clear data. this will erase your contacts so make sure you have it backed up.
then go to SETTINGS then ACCOUNTS and SYNC then backup assistant and sync now and this should put all your contacts back on your phone without being relinked to facebook or yahoo at least i remember it being something like this when i was trying to get rid of facebook being linked to my contacts on my Tbolt.

How can I delete old, incorrect contacts from iCloud?

There are hidden duplicates in my iCloud contacts - old ones for contacts where I've updated info. They don't show up in the regular contacts list ("all contacts"), yet they always show up when I enter a name into an email address and in iPhoto's Faces names. I can't change them to the correct names in iPhoto. And I can't find them to delete the old data.
Anyone know where these are stored (old contact data that's been deleted or updated)? And, how can I access that place?
Thank you.

Well.....
After an incredible amount of research on this issue, I discovered it's not new. In fact, there have been many complaints about it with no action (to date) by Apple. Here's what's happening...
On iOS devices (iPad, iPhone), when an email is received or an email address is changed, IN THE EMAIL APP, a cache is formed with all the "received email addresses." These - right/wrong/incorrect/whatever are stored and pop up when you enter an email recipient. THERE IS NO WAY TO DELETE THESE ON iDEVICES.
However, if you have a Mac, it's an easy cure -
Open Mail > Windows > Previous recipients > select those you want out (or all, for that matter - doesn't affect the Contacts list) > Remove.
Too bad Apple hasn't seen fit to add this to its iOS functionality. Maybe if enough complaints are received, it might show up in iOS6 ?????

How can I delete all my documents in iCloud Drive?

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HT5500 How can i delete all contacts on both iphone 4 and ipad mini 2

How can I delete all contacts on an iphone 4 or ipad mini 2

Open a contact. Click "Edit". Scroll to the bottom. Choose "Delete contact". Repeat.

I bought this apple ipad from pawn shop and have receipt. its locked by previous owner and pawn shop had no info on previous owner to contact. how can I delete all content and start fresh so my grandson can use for college?

i bought this apple ipad from pawn shop and have receipt. its locked by previous owner and pawn shop had no info on previous owner to contact. how can I delete all content and start fresh so my grandson can use for college?

If it's activation locked, you can't; go back to the shop and ask for a refund.
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TS4147 My contacts from iphone were deleted by mistake, but I found them saved in may icloud account, on a PC. Now how can I import all may contacts back to myu iphone?

My contacts from iphone were deleted by mistake, but I found them saved in may icloud account, on a PC. Now how can I import all may contacts back to myu iphone?

Do you mean they are on the web at iCloud.com or on your PC in an iCloud client (such as Outlook)

How can I delete all of my contacts from my iphone? I have updated my contact list in Outlook, and need to re-import that "clean" list.

How can I delete all of my contacts from my iphone? I have updated my contact list in Outlook, and need to re-import that "clean" list.

There is a checkbox on the 'info' tab in iTunes that will allow you to overwrite the address book on the phone with the one from the computer on the next sync.

How can I delete all "hidden" contacts in iCloud?

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