iOS 16 will tidy up your messy Contacts app by finding duplicate cards

Iphone Contacts Entry (Image credit: Getty)

What you need to know

Apple's upcoming iOS 16 update is set to add support for removing duplicate contacts.
The iOS 16 Contacts app will highlight and merge duplicate contact cards when needed.
iOS 16 is now available in developer bet and will ship to everyone else later this year.

Apple's upcoming iOS 16 update is set to help people tidy out their messy Contacts app by finding and then removing duplicate cards.

Announced during the WWDC22 opening keynote this past Monday, iOS 16 will bring with it a number of big upgrades including changes to the Lock Screen and more. But one of the features that could be a big quality of life improvement for many is the ability to easily find and then merge duplicate entries in the Contacts app.

With iOS 15 installed, iPhone owners were left to find their own duplicates and deal with them manually. That'll all change when iOS 16 ships later this year, according to MacRumors. The problem of duplicate contact cards isn't a new one. In fact, it's something that iPhone, iPad, and Mac owners have been fighting with for years — a point illustrated by the various contact cleanup apps found in the App Store. It's positive news that Apple is adding a feature that deals with a common problem at the operating system level.

Ios 16 Lock Screen (Image credit: Apple)

Apple's iOS 16 was announced alongside a raft of software updates that are all now available in developer beta form. iPadOS 16 adds support for Stage Manager for window-based multitasking, while the same feature is also part of the new macOS Ventura update, too. Those with Apple Watches can look forward to four new watch faces when watchOS 9 ships, likely just ahead of the arrival of the rumored Apple Watch Series 8.

More to come!

Some expected iOS 16 features have yet to be announced because they will form part of the iPhone 14 experience. One example is a new always-on Lock Screen that will likely build on the already popular changes made for older devices as part of the iOS 16 update. Apple won't share details about those features until it announces the new iPhone lineup, likely in or around September.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.