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I was trying to clean up the contacts on my Droid X and part of the process (after turning off sync) was to delete all contacts on the phone. I didn't have many, so I manually deleted each on (read: tedious). Is there a way to bulk delete contacts on a handset?

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4 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

From the home screen hit the menu button and go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications. Make sure yo are in the "All Applications" tab so you see the system apps and choose "Contact Storage" and click "Clear Data". This will delete all your contacts without disturbing anything else.

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I know what you mean @Matt. Some members of this SE site seem to have a poor idea of what a downvote should mean (I have gotten more than one downvote for an acceptable answer, all without a comment to explain what the problem is). – shambleh Feb 3 '11 at 12:37
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Nobody needs to validate their vote. In fact, it has been seen that people who do comment when they downvote are often attacked for it. I suppose downvotes are just more noticeable here because we're a fraction of the size of Stack Overflow or Super User. – Al Everett Feb 3 '11 at 14:13
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(but this is a meta conversation, so it shouldn't be continued here) – Al Everett Feb 3 '11 at 14:14
up vote 1 down vote

Well, there's this app, imaginatively entitled Delete Contacts

QR code for "Delete Contacts" app

Interestingly, doesn't work on the Droid. There are also, of course, some other apps in the "Related" area that would appear to do the same thing.

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up vote 1 down vote

You can delete this file if you have root: data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db

You could also try clearing data for Contacts Storage (Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications).

Finally a factory reset will do this, but you lose all your user apps and data as well.

Note: As per Ryan's comment, you'll need to shut off contact sync for your accounts if you don't want the contacts to be repopulated.

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If you have sync setup, won't the contacts resync? – Ryan Conrad Feb 3 '11 at 3:19
I could be misunderstanding the question, but I think he's just trying to clear everything off the phone so he can do a fresh sync. So that should be OK. But a valid point; I'll add a caveat to my answer. – Matthew Read♦ Feb 3 '11 at 3:36
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I think that you have it @matthew-read (I mention turning off sync above). The goal of the exercise is to get a fresh sync – shambleh Feb 3 '11 at 12:39
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read: Have you tried the second method? It does not delete any contacts for me. – Matt Feb 3 '11 at 13:57
@Matt I forgot that Contacts had a separate Contacts Storage. +1 to your answer. – Matthew Read♦ Feb 3 '11 at 18:57
up vote 0 down vote

My phone is rooted. First I made sure all of my data was correct at www.google.com/contacts . Then exported the data (.csv file) from google’s web site to my home computer for safe storage. I used the app Titanium Backup to “Wipe data” for the apps Contacts 4.0.3 and Contacts Storage 4.0.3. Next, waited (approx 1 min) for my phone to re-sync with google and all of the contacts were restored. Finally, I went back into Titanium Backup and preformed a full back up for apps Contacts 4.0.3 and Contacts Storage 4.0.3.

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