Contacts linking cards instead of merging them, causing multiple Birthday entries in Calendar

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Contacts linking cards instead of merging them, causing multiple Birthday entries in Calendar

Hi,

I recently had to use Time Machine to do a complete reinstall. Afterwards many of my contacts were duplicated, Many are on iCloud, my Google Account & On My Mac, and it looked as if they had been split up (As none of these cards had the three locations listed under "cards"). I went through & linked all the cards (As merge was not offered as an option) , but now it looks like this has caused multiple duplicate Birthday entries in Calendar, & I cannot see a way to remove the extra entries. Any suggestions? (Look for duplicates in Contacts only finds three entries & these are people with identical names, so that doesN#t help).

Thanks in advance,

Richard

Posted on Jan 18, 2023 2:36 AM

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Answer 1

claire504

Community Specialist

Jan 19, 2023 12:51 PM in response to Peachtree55

Hi there Peachtree55,

If you have contacts that are duplicated across different accounts (like iCloud and Google/Gmail), then you may need to figure where you'd like your contacts to default to and then merge all that contact information under one account. This is because it may not be possible to merge one contact across separate accounts, but instead only link which you can read more about below:

"When you use several accounts in Contacts, you may end up with several cards for a contact—for example, one card from Yahoo and one from Google. You can link the contact’s cards to streamline your list of contacts without merging the cards. See Link contacts."

That information is from here: Merge contact cards in Contacts on Mac - Apple Support

Take care!

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Answer 2

claire504

Community Specialist

Jan 22, 2023 12:05 PM in response to Peachtree55

Hey Peachtree55,

Since you continue to encounter this even after signing out and restarting, you can contact Apple Support for further assistance. Another way you can reach them is with the following link: Contact - Official Apple Support

Best wishes.

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Answer 3

Peachtree55 Author

Level 1

28 points

Jan 19, 2023 1:21 PM in response to claire504

Hi there,

Unfortunately that did not work. I tested on one entry, and even when I took it down to just on iCloud there were still four identical Birthday instances for that person. Adding it to google & now there are 9 instances generated by Contacts! All very strange.

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Answer 4

Ben_Z1

Community Specialist

Jan 19, 2023 2:38 PM in response to Peachtree55

Hello Peachtree55,

We appreciate those additional details and trying those steps out. Based on what's happening, we would recommend reaching out to Apple Support next. They would be the best equipped to look into this behavior further. They can be reached using this: Apple Support

Cheers!

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Answer 5

Peachtree55 Author

Level 1

28 points

Jan 22, 2023 2:18 AM in response to Ben_Z1

In the end, I found a help post on Apple where it said to sign out of iCloud on all the devices, restart, & sign in again. This was a lengthy process as everything took time to reload Mail emails & folders etc. but in the end I am now down to 2 or three entries per person - part of this I think caused by my 2013 iMac which is running Big Sur via OpenCore Legacy Patcher, & so Contacts do not fully "engage" with the Cloud Contacts or Contacts on my iPad & MBP (All changes are recognised in every direction, but linking my iCloud Cards & Google Mail cards is not, & so has to be done "manually" on the iMac & I think this might throw up the third instance.

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Answer 6

Peachtree55 Author

Level 1

28 points

Jan 22, 2023 1:37 PM in response to claire504

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, as I have to run Big Sur on my 2013 iMac through OCLP since Catalina was the last official OS for it, Apple Support are never keen on helping with unofficial builds.

(I moved to Big Sur as I need the Security updates for Office 365, & it also does not support Catalina any longer)

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Answer 7

Peachtree55 Author

Level 1

28 points

Feb 14, 2023 1:38 AM in response to Peachtree55

Hi,

A final note on this. I sold my iMac & Cinema Display, got a 2023 Mac mini M2 & two new 27" screens. A Time Machine transfer got all my iMac info onto the Mac mini & on sign in my Birthday multiples in Calendar were gone, but I still had iCloud & Google contacts de-linking or refusing to link. In the end, I linked all I could on the Mac mini, went to my MBP, linked any I could there. Back to the Mac mini (I only had one computer on at any time) & any that were not linked, I deleted one of the cards, then dragged it to iCloud to produce an iCloud contact (Interestingly, whichever of the two instances I deleted, it always seemed to be the iCloud one I had deleted - there is no way in "All Contacts" when you have two cards to see if the individual card is iCloud or Google).

Now, all cards are linked between both iCloud & Google & none have de-linked! Fingers crossed that it remains this way! :-)

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Contacts linking cards instead of merging them, causing multiple Birthday entries in Calendar

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