Delete duplicate contacts from Address Book on Mountain Lion with iCloud

AddressBook Cleaner's users ask us for a solution to remove duplicate contacts from Apple Address Book on Lion and Mountain Lion with iCloud. Since it's a very common problem for users who have upgraded to Lion and used iCloud to keep contacts. The following is a quick step by step guide to finish removal of contact duplicates in such situation:

Remember to backup all contacts before doing the following removal steps

There are 2 steps to delete duplicates from iCloud:

• Get full copy of contacts on local computer

  1. First, go to System Preferences by clicking  -> System Preferences..., then choose iCloud, it will appear like

     

     Uncheck the "Contacts" surrounded by red line to disable sync Address Book with iCloud, then there will be a message ask for dealing with local contacts.

  2. Choose "Keep Contacts" to leave contacts on local computer

  3. Re-enable sync Address Book with iCloud by clicking checkbox

     

  4. This time, choose "Merge" to combine contacts from iCloud to make sure we have full copy of contacts.

     

  5. Disable iCloud again as step 2

  6. Delete duplicates by using AddressBook Cleaner

  7. Now, we have all the contacts on local computer. Repeat steps above to confirm that we have clear copy of contacts on all computers.

• Update iCloud Contacts

  1. Once we have finished getting full copy of contacts on computers, sign in iCloud

  2. Choose "Contacts"

  3. Delete all contacts in iCloud You'd better made a backup by "Export vCard..." before perform the deletion.

     Show the action menu by clicking the button at bottom left corner of the iCloud page.

  4. Enable iCloud "Contacts" on your computer (the computer you've done the cleanup in Part I) to update iCloud from local copy of contacts.

  5. Done!

     Wait until the update process finishes in step 4. Check to confirm that you have every contact in iCloud "Contacts" as local computer.