Why are each of my contacts in Verizon cloud more than 100 times?

[DARLAB2]

Deleted all contacts to free up space in Cloud, that in turn erased all but 4 from my phone. The contacts are all in the trash folder but they all have multiple entries 100+ for each(53,293 items) but only 3 dates listed. 8-7-15, 13-31-16, 1-3-17. Cloud online shows I have 202 contacts, app shows 196 and phone only shows 41 contacts. I am slowly working my way through them (restore the first one then delete 100+ for each) How did this happen ???

[Ann154]

You might want to consider storing the contacts in your Gmail or Microsoft account instead.

[DARLAB2]

Thank you Ann154

[dexman · Accepted solution]

I have run into the multiple contact a few times. As best as I can determine, it has something to do with saving contacts to multiple cloud services that do not have matching datafields.

For example, one service might have a datafield where you can list a spouse or children. Another cloud service might not have those options, so, it lists that information as something else, saves the info to itself, and, creates a new entry in the other cloud service.

What I have ended up doing is saving my cell phone contact list only to Verizon's cloud, but, recreate the same database locally on each of my Microsoft Surface devices without backing up those devices to any cloud service...including Outlook.

It is a pain having to create juggle three databases, but, not linking them has eliminated the multiple entry issue...for me anyway.