How to Remove Duplicate Facebook Entries from Motorola Droid Contacts

One mildly irritating bug I’ve noticed on my Motorola Droid is that some of my contacts accumulate duplicate Facebook profiles in their contact information.  Opening their contact information can show from 5-7 additional Facebook profiles, but they all open the correct profile page.

android-facebook-dupes-dupemain

Here’s a quick fix I came up with to remove the duplicates:

  1. Open the Facebook application.
    android-facebook-dupes-fb
  2. Touch the Menu button and select Settings.
    android-facebook-dupes-settings
  3. Scroll down and touch Sync Contacts.
    android-facebook-dupes-menu
  4. Select Remove Facebook data.  This will delete all Facebook contacts from your phone (but don’t worry, they’re read-only and we’ll restore them in the next step).
    android-facebook-dupes-del
  5. Repeat the entire process but this time change the synchronization settings back to Sync all.
    android-facebook-dupes-restore

Your Facebook contacts will now synchronize and the duplicates should now be removed.

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Evan Wondrasek

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Comments

14 responses to “How to Remove Duplicate Facebook Entries from Motorola Droid Contacts”

  1. Chris_ Avatar
    Chris_

    I don't believe this is the proper solution. 1. You'll end up syncing everyone into your contact list, which isn't what was originally selected (and isn't what most people will want to do). 2. I believe what the issue is, that the Droid is unable to tell when an profile is just edited and isn't a newly created profile, so it thinks after every edit it should give you another link to their profile. Therefore, it will work, but only until one of those people updates their profile.

  2. Chris_ Avatar
    Chris_

    I don't believe this is the proper solution. 1. You'll end up syncing everyone into your contact list, which isn't what was originally selected (and isn't what most people will want to do). 2. I believe what the issue is, that the Droid is unable to tell when an profile is just edited and isn't a newly created profile, so it thinks after every edit it should give you another link to their profile. Therefore, it will work, but only until one of those people updates their profile.

  3. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    Worked for me… Got rid of all of my Facebook contacts and now I can choose whatever it is that I want to do. Thanks!

  4. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    Worked for me… Got rid of all of my Facebook contacts and now I can choose whatever it is that I want to do. Thanks!

  5. Wayne Avatar
    Wayne

    Worked for me as well!

    Thanks from a 4 hour droid user!

  6. Wayne Avatar
    Wayne

    Worked for me as well!

    Thanks from a 4 hour droid user!

  7. Kristin Collins Avatar
    Kristin Collins

    what if I don't want my 800 friends on my droid, but I also want the ones that are synced not to collect superfluous facebook links? 🙁

  8. Evan Wondrasek Avatar
    Evan Wondrasek

    You should be able to follow this guide just the same, except you will need to select “Sync with existing contacts” in Step 5.

  9. Jsg420 Avatar
    Jsg420

    I had the same issue kind of. My problem is that I happen to know a lot of people that have the same names so it is adding things to people with the same names that don’t even have a facebook. For instance my cousins name is antoinette roybal and she does not have a facebook account, but I do have another friend named antoinette roybal that does have a facebook account so when it synced it added the facebook friends picture to my cousins contact information and so on. Does anyone know anything that can be doen about that?

  10. Evan Wondrasek Avatar
    Evan Wondrasek

    I’ve had this same problem before. When viewing the incorrectly merged contact, you should be able to press Menu and select some type of “Split Contact” option. This will separate the contacts into two different individuals.

  11. Scrubly Avatar
    Scrubly

    Interested to see how easy it is to sync it up.

  12. John Avatar
    John

    I don’t have the SYNC option. Under “Other Settings” is just Help nothing else

    1. Evan Wondrasek Avatar
      Evan Wondrasek

      Hi John,

      Which phone are you using? If I remember correctly, the sync feature was disabled on some phone because they independently managed Facebook contacts (I think HTC phones in particular did this).

      Try checking in your phone settings under “Accounts and Sync” to see if Facebook settings are available there.

  13. smriti Avatar
    smriti

    hi evan , i am using xperia sola.. and i used facebook xperia integration to sync my facebook contacts and calendar..
    now i c duplicate calender events and contacts in my phone.. can u pls tell how may i remove the duplicate calendar events(dates) and also all facebook contacts from my phone? facebook version 1.7.2. .. dont c remove facebook data option under Sync Contacts option instead c a Don’t Sync option

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