I have a bunch of double entry contacts on my iphone, i wish to remove them all off my iphone so i can just do a clean resync to yahoo.

i still to this day cant sync up with outlook.

ultimately i can restore my iphone but when i do this it fails to restore my old contacts from backup, it crashs with some error.

no prob i just tell ti to sync to my yahoo contacts which i keep updated...but when i sync up to yahoo it pulls over all the contacts from my iphone onto yahoo which i dont want to do.

in itunes there is no option to tell it to only sync one way, it does it both ways and no option to remove contacts.

Just delete the iTunes backup, then delete the contacts from your iPhone.
Then sync it...

Or you can manually edit the 2 database files /var/root/Library/AddressBook/
AddressBook.sqlitedb
AddressBookImages.sqlitedb

u say delete contacts from my iphone...but how to delete them all?
i have alot. i can delete one by one but that would take me too long, is there any easy way to mass delete?

ok so i cna also edit the file on iphone...i'll look at it and see if i can edit it to mass delete the contacts.

Originally Posted by ninja_pimp

u say delete contacts from my iphone...but how to delete them all?
i have alot. i can delete one by one but that would take me too long, is there any easy way to mass delete?

ok so i cna also edit the file on iphone...i'll look at it and see if i can edit it to mass delete the contacts.

It's a SQL database file, you need to use a utility capable of modifying it.
You cannot just "edit" like a text file.

sigh
well this seems dumb...
it sounds like there is no easy method to mass delete contacts on the iphone..
one has to restore the iphone, starting all over when all i want to do is remove all contacts.
i'll guess i have to do it one by one then, pain in da butt.

Originally Posted by ninja_pimp

sigh
well this seems dumb...
it sounds like there is no easy method to mass delete contacts on the iphone..
one has to restore the iphone, starting all over when all i want to do is remove all contacts.
i'll guess i have to do it one by one then, pain in da butt.

ninja_pimp,

all you have to do is delete the files:

AddressBook.sqlitedb
AddressBookImages.sqlitedb

as you can see AddressBook.sqlitedb stores the contacts and AddressBookImages.sqlitedb stores the pictures of the contact.

all you have to do is delete both and turn off and back on the iphone will create the files again by it self and the contacts will be empty.

Just backup before delete just in case. Tested on my own phone worked fine

I know this is an old post, but mybe someone has the same problem...

If you're at Windows, Create a new account on Yahoo! Contacts and sync that account (with nothing on it) with your Iphone...

Also, make sure that in the end of info tab on Itunes you have replace information on this Iphone marked, on whatever you want to delete.

Hope that helps, it has helped me.

I know this is an old post but its the one that brought me here. Heres the solution I found.

Download the AdressBook.sqlitedb file to your destop.
Download SQLite Database Browser.
Open the Database
Click the "browsedata" tab.
On the table dropdown choose: ABPerson

Delete away.

It doesn't really delete all the contacts info, Only their names, so address book has nothing to show!

Its hack-a-licious but it worked for my purpose, which was to not see the same contact 5 times in a row.

if u think that your address book on your notebook is the updated one:
1. backup your notebook's address book
2. delete all contacts
3. sync with "replace information on this iphone" mode. it will be "no contacts" on your iphone contacts.

good luck.

leobesus

Originally Posted by ninja_pimp

u say delete contacts from my iphone...but how to delete them all?
i have alot. i can delete one by one but that would take me too long, is there any easy way to mass delete?

ok so i cna also edit the file on iphone...i'll look at it and see if i can edit it to mass delete the contacts.