How to delete all contacts from iPhone 3. How to delete contacts from iPhone in different ways

Useful tips

As you know, phone numbers that you write down in the iPhone are saved only in its memory and are not stored on the SIM card. To be honest, in our opinion, this is not entirely correct, but there is no way out. Therefore, in order not to lose contacts, you need them, for example, with Outlook.

If you just purchased, say, a brand new iPhone 4S, then you will not find any contact entries in it, except for one standard one. It’s a completely different matter when you purchase a device second-hand, which certain time used. In this case, you will receive a phone that will contain the telephone numbers of the previous owner, and since you clearly have no use for them, you need to get rid of them. Theoretically, you can delete one contact at a time, but what to do if there are hundreds of them? Is there really no function that would allow you to immediately clean your phone? There is, but it is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and start in order.

Deleting individual phone numbers

To do this, you need to go to the “Phone” section on your iPhone, select “Contacts”, find desired contact and click on it.

After this, you will see the details of the person whose number you want to delete. On the right top corner There is a “Change” button - click on it, scroll down the page and click on the “Delete contact” button. Now you confirm the action and, voila, the number is no longer there.

Delete all contacts at once

If you decide to delete all phone numbers at once, then you will have to resort to a different way to solve this problem.

To do this, launch iTunes, connect the phone to the computer using a cable.

In iTunes, in the “Devices” section, select our gadget, then go to the “Information” tab.

Here you need to synchronize contacts with the “Windows Contact Book” or Outlook (don’t forget to check the box next to the selected item!), select “All contacts” just below. An important detail - it is necessary that the program with which your iPhone will be synchronized is empty, because only in this case will the phone be cleared of numbers.

Now we go down a little lower and in the “Replace the following information on this iPhone” field, check the box next to the “Contacts” item.

Now click on the “Apply” button. We wait until the procedure is completed (it can take up to several minutes) and, voila, your phone is cleared of information you don’t need.

It is worth noting that this operation is available for owners of devices such as iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S and 5.

Complete cleaning phone book required before selling a gadget or, conversely, immediately after purchasing a used phone. How to delete all contacts from an iPhone, what is needed for this procedure, and what is the fastest and most effective method? Helpful information– in our article.

Unlike gadgets on the Android OS, Apple devices are not equipped with functionality that allows you to quickly select and delete all contact information.

Several data from the directory can be deleted. But to do this, you need to open each of the contacts in turn and click the delete button in the “Edit” tab. But in order to completely erase the entire book in this way, it will take a lot of time and nerves.

To quickly delete contacts on an iPhone, you need to use a USB cable to connect the gadget to a computer or laptop and go to a special iTunes app. You can use the most convenient of the existing two options for erasing data using it.

Method 1:

Log into the program on your laptop or computer and authenticate.
Click on the icon of the associated device at the top right of the window from which you want to erase contacts.
In the drop-down list, select the “Info” section.
Check the “Sync Contacts” option using the check mark.
Scroll down and open the “Advanced” option, where you can mark the “Delete contacts” checkbox.

Confirm your actions by clicking the “Apply” button.
The next option does not involve erasing data, but synchronizing the phone with an empty Windows Contacts or Outlook phone book. After this, previous contacts will immediately disappear.

Method 2:

The first four steps of the algorithm are identical to the previous removal method. Next, you need to adjust your actions.
Select the option with which application you want to synchronize the phone book.
Find the “All Contacts” option and highlight it.
Go down to the “Advanced” section and check the “Contacts” field.

Confirm your actions with the “Apply” button.

If you can’t use a computer and iTunes, but you urgently need to clear your gadget of data, the following method will do:

Click “Settings” on your device (gear icon).
Select the “Basic” / “Reset” section.
On new page Click “Erase content and settings.”
Confirm the start of the removal procedure.

This method erases not only contacts, but also all information stored on the gadget.

If the owner's plans do not include further use devices, then the described method is the most optimal and fastest.

Uninstall using iCloud

If the gadget is synchronized with the cloud for Apple devices, you can use the latter to quickly delete all contacts from your iPhone at once. Moreover, this can be done even if the phone is nearby this moment No.

The step by step procedure is:

Open iCloud cloud on the computer.
Enter your Apple ID and password to log into your Personal Account.
Select the “Contacts” tab.
Place a checkmark at the top of the list in the “All Contacts” field.

At the bottom of the window, select the “Delete” (Del) button and confirm your intention again.
Contact information that was synced with virtual cloud, will be deleted.

If contacts are stored on the SIM card, they will remain in its memory. The Apple device does not have the function of erasing data from the card memory.

Third-party applications for deleting contacts

In the shop App Store a special application is presented that allows you to delete contacts on iPhone - Smart Merge. To have access to the advanced functionality of the program, you will have to pay, since free version a little limited in its capabilities.

After downloading the application, the procedure is as follows.

Download the software to the gadget and click on the Smart Merge icon.
For the program to work, it must be given access to the phone book by clicking OK.
Open the “All contacts” section and check the box in the top right corner.
Select the cart button by clicking.
Agree by clicking OK.

You can try other data erasing apps. They can be used by “hacked” devices that have a jailbreak, since these programs are not from the official “Apple” store.

In the Cydia store you can download the Erase contacts utility and install it on your gadget. After successful installation, the phone book icon with a red cross through it appears. To get rid of all contact information, you need to click on it.

You can delete files containing contacts directly from file system. This method requires connecting the device to a PC or laptop.

Download the iTools utility to your PC.
In the program line, specify the address - private\var\mobile\Library\AddressBook.
In the list, select the files AddressBookImages.sqlitedb and sqlitedb by clicking the mouse, and then press Del on the keyboard.
Turn off and restart your iPhone.

Possible problems and their solutions

There are situations when, after synchronizing with the phone book on a PC, the contacts on the gadget remain. This happens because the directory already stored its data, and the gadget needs to be associated only with an empty book. You can check the availability of files at [System_drive]/Users/[Account_name]/Contacts. If there is anything in the folder, then the data should be deleted.

iTunes may report that contacts are synced via wireless network. This happens if previous owner device has not turned off the synchronization option, as a result of which unknown numbers will appear in your contact book.

To solve this problem, you need to disable iCloud synchronization.

Go to “Settings” and select the iCloud section.
Move the slider opposite the “Contacts” column to the inactive position.

You can completely delete a linked account if it belongs to someone else. To do this, in the same menu you need to select the “Delete account” option and click confirmation.

To clear iPhone memory, you can delete the entire phone book or just unnecessary contacts. At the same time, it is possible to remove only those numbers that were downloaded via iCloud. To successfully complete the operation, just view step by step instructions and repeat all the steps on your smartphone.

Deleting contacts on iPhone one by one

This method does not require any software or other manipulations - all actions are carried out using standard functionality smartphone.

This method is only suitable if you need to delete several contacts. To completely clear the phone book, it is ineffective and can take quite a long time.

How to delete contacts? To do this, we go to the “Contacts” section in the phone menu.

Next, select the contact that needs to be deleted from the phone’s memory. To do this, simply click on it with one touch. After which the contact page itself will open, where extended information about the users is indicated. Find the “Edit” button (Edit – for the English version), which is located in the upper right side of the screen:

Next, scroll down the screen to the very end, where there should be a “Delete contact” button, highlighted in red. Click on it, and the contact will be deleted from the phone’s memory:

If you want to selectively delete contacts from your smartphone, carefully check whether you opened the correct contact, because it will be impossible to restore the erased information.

How to delete all contacts at once via iTunes?

If you need to completely clear the contact list on your iPhone, connect it to your computer and run iTunes program. Login to own account by entering the password and login for it.

After that, click on the button in the upper right corner, where the icon of your device is displayed:

Next, a window will open with information about your iPhone. After that, click on the “Information” button and wait for a new window to open. Find the item “Synchronize contacts” and select it with a checkmark. Scroll down and select “All contacts”:

After this, the system will give you a warning window that all contacts will be replaced and ask if we want to continue. Select the "Replace Information" button:

After completing all the above steps, contacts from your iPhone will be completely deleted. As a rule, this procedure takes no more than 5-7 minutes. If you clear the phone book manually, provided that it has 50 contacts, it can take from 20 minutes to half an hour.

How to delete contacts that were downloaded via iCloud?

iOS smart system, which is capable of importing your friends' contacts from various social networks, but sometimes this overloads the phone book, leads to the creation of duplicates, etc. How to delete exactly those contacts that are automatically loaded by the system from iCloud?

To do this, go to the settings section of your phone and select your personal data:

Find iCloud in the list and click on it. Will open new screen, where statistics on the storage fullness will be indicated, as well as a list of applications whose data is synchronized with the storage. In this list, find the “Contacts” item:

And turn off the slider, it should turn gray. After this, the system will ask you what you want to do with those contacts that were synchronized before - delete or leave in the device memory. You must select delete. After this, all contacts that were transferred via iCloud will be completely deleted.

How to selectively delete contacts using a special application?

Due to the fact that the iPhone is a rather limited device in terms of working with contacts and deleting them, the developers are releasing special applications, allowing you to simplify the procedure for cleaning contacts. One of these is Smart Merge. This application allows you not only to clear your contact book, but also to selectively delete contacts. Let's look at how to use it.

First you need to find and download the application on your phone. After downloading, click on the corresponding shortcut on the desktop of your smartphone. The application will start. Before you start, it will ask for access to your contacts - you must open it for Smart Merge.

After this it will open work panel applications where you must select “All contacts”:

After that, click on the pencil icon at the top right of the screen and select from the list all the contacts that you would like to delete:

Once selected, look for the trash can icon in the lower right corner and click on it. All selected contacts will be deleted from the phone memory:

You can also use various file managers, which also allow you to manage your contacts. They are presented in various options. We will look at the method using iTools. To clean the contacts you need to:

Install the program on your PC and connect your iPhone to it;
In the working window, enter the following path: privatevarmobileLibraryAddressBook
Find files in the folder that opens sqlitedb And AddressBookImages.sqlitedb and delete them:

Reboot your smartphone and you’re done – all contacts are deleted.

The fastest and most reliable way

The simplest and in a fast way deleting contacts from iPhone is full reset phone. To do this, go to the settings and follow the following path: Basic - Reset - Erase content and settings:

Remember that this method involves deleting not only user data in your phone book, but also all files and settings.

Video assistant

In the following video you can clearly see how you can selectively delete contacts on iPhone, as well as how to quickly delete all contacts at once:

So, there are several ways to delete contacts from iPhone. They allow group, selective or complete cleaning phone book. The choice of one method or another depends only on the personal needs of the user.

We have already talked about how to transfer contacts to iPhone, considering options and. However, many users are interested in the possibility of deleting all contacts from the iPhone that remain there, for example, from the previous owner. In this article we will look at this simple procedure in detail.

Not all Apple smartphone users know how to properly prepare their iPhone for sale. As a result, the new owner ends up with a whole bunch of problems, including incomprehensible applications with endless notifications, old contacts, and set password on Restrictions and much, much more. In order not to lose face in front of the buyer and properly prepare your iPhone, you can study, in which we described everything in detail.

But today we’re not talking about that, but about how to quickly and completely delete all contacts from your iPhone. It's very easy to do.

Step 1: Connect your iPhone to your computer using a USB cable

Step 2: Open iTunes (If iTunes is not installed, you can download latest version from the official website)

Step 3. Wait until the iPhone is detected by the program, then select it in the side menu. The side menu can be accessed by going to the menu View -> Show side menu

Step 4. Go to section Information and check the box Sync contacts with: and select a program that does not contain contacts

Step 5: Click Synchronize in the lower right corner of the screen

After this, all contacts on your iPhone will be deleted. Some problems may arise during the process, let's look at some of them.

What to do if you still have contacts on your iPhone?

This situation means that contact book the program already contained some contacts that were automatically transferred to your device. You only need to sync with an empty workbook or clear it. The easiest way is to synchronize with Windows Contacts, having first deleted all files from the folder [System_drive]/Users/[Account_name]/Contacts.

What should I do if iTunes notifies me that I'm syncing my contacts over the wireless network?

IN in this case, previous iPhone owner did not disable contact synchronization with iCloud (or you used it yourself). If you want to delete contacts from iPhone, then you need to disable iCloud synchronization. To do this, go to the menu on your iPhone Settings -> iCloud and deactivate the switch Contacts. If after this iTunes also issues a notification about wireless synchronization, in the same menu on your smartphone at the very bottom, press the button Delete your account. Attention: after clicking, synchronization of your data in cloud service iCloud will stop.

Accumulated information sooner or later needs to be systematized. This rule fully applies to address book smartphone, the number of entries in which is constantly increasing. Over time, some stored data may no longer be relevant. Having disappeared from your field of vision, a person can change his phone number, address Email or Skype login. In this case, it is useful to know how to delete all contacts from iPhone or perform selective editing.

The structure of the address book in iOS remains virtually unchanged with the release of latest versions operating system. The changes are cosmetic in nature, without affecting the main functions. Thanks to this, contact management for iPhone any models, be it 4S, 5, SE, 6, 7, 8 or X, are absolutely identical. You can work with them in separate application or directly in the phone book.

Apple is constantly increasing the autonomy of the iPhone, reducing its dependence on the computer and iTunes. Each a new version programs gets rid of unnecessary functions, which can be performed on the smartphone itself. To this day, iTunes is not needed to update the firmware, control software and contact synchronization. All this is done over the air using wireless networks.

Individual removal

For user safety and protection from erroneous actions, iOS does not have the ability to mass delete address book entries. You cannot select several subscribers at once and completely erase them in one motion. This rule works regardless of whether you are holding the 4th or 10th iPhone in your hands. The need to clear the list of duplicates is often caused by Viber, WhatsApp messengers or social network clients who have access to the address book.

In order to clear the saved list of subscribers, we use the single deletion mode. We open the card that we are going to remove from the list. Click on the button indicated by the arrow.

Let's scroll through several screens on which you can view all the records related to the subscriber. At the very bottom there is a button highlighted with a frame. Click on it to erase data.

We confirm the decision by using the corresponding pop-up menu item. Remote contact will be automatically erased from the main area and favorites. The number will only be saved in the black list if it was previously placed there.

It will be impossible to cancel this action in case of an error and return the contact.

Complete removal

You can completely delete all data associated with your account from your phone only if you disable synchronization. You can find the necessary parameters in two places.

Open the settings and go to the marked item.

Using the preview, we see in what account The “Contacts” item is mentioned. By default, the storage that is set as the primary storage for synchronization is placed at the top of the list.

If you use several accounts, open the duplicate ones first. We move the marked switch to the “Off” position.

The same operation performed in the master record will require confirmation. To delete the entire address book, select the specified pop-up menu item.

iCloud Settings

Most users for storage telephone numbers uses only proprietary cloud Apple service. In this case, you can choose more quick method erasing.

Open the main settings page. At the top of the screen, in the area indicated by a frame, there are parameters iCloud management. Click on it to enter the main menu.