iOS: How To Remove A Contact From A Group On iPhone and iPad

There is no direct way to remove a contact from a group. Therefore, you have to do the following work-around via emailing the contact to yourself, completely deleting the contact and then add the emailed contact to a new group or account.

1. Open the native Contacts app on your iPhone or iPad, go to the contact you want to remove from a group and tap on ‘Share Contact‘. Then email the contact to yourself.
2. After receiving the contact via email, go to the native Contacts app and delete the contact completely. Tap on the contact, tap on ‘Edit‘, scroll down until you see ‘Delete Contact‘ and execute it.
3. Before adding the contact to the desired group in the Contacts app, make sure you selected the proper default account and group. If you selected ‘Show All contacts‘, the contact will be added to the default account. If you want to add the contact to a dedicated group or an account other than the default one, follow the steps ‘1. How to move a contact to a group on iPhone and iPad using the native iOS 8 contacts app‘ in the post ‘iOS 8: How To Add A Contact To A Group On iPhone And iPad‘.
4. Next, go to the Email app and open the email you sent to yourself in step 1. Tap on the attachment ‘NameOfContact.vcf’. For importing the contact to the group you selected in the step 1, tap on ‘Create New Contact‘.
5. Now check that the contact is in the correct group.

2. How to remove a contact from a group on iPhone and iPad using iOS 8 / iOS 9 / iOS 10 / iOS 11 third-party apps:

There are many third-party apps on iOS 8 / iOS 9 / iOS 10 / iOS 11 to easily add, move and remove contacts. However, most of them just allow to manage iCloud contact groups. This means other contacts account like Google’s Gmail contacts or other third-party contacts are not supported.

The only acceptable app I found after hours of searching and testing is the iOS universal app ‘Simpler Contacts – Pro‘ by Yoni Tserruya. Simpler Contacts Pro got full access to all contacts of the native iOS contacts app including Facebook contacts. For example, Outlook.com Exchange, Gmail, Gmail Google apps (Google Contacts) and other accounts are supported.

Here’s how to remove a contact from just a group on iPhone and iPad using the iOS app ‘Simpler Contacts Pro‘:

1. Open ‘Simpler Contacts Pro‘.
2. Go to ‘Groups‘, tap on the group where you want to remove a contact and tap on ‘Edit‘.
3. A pop-up window open with all contacts in that group. Tap on a the contact to remove. The green mark disappears.
4. Tap on ‘Save‘. Done!

Note: The lite version ‘Simpler Contacts‘ does not support moving or copying contacts between accounts. You have to upgrade to the Pro version with additional features:

• Copy or move contacts
• Merge all duplicates (Unlimited merges)
• Send group text & email (Send to unlimited number of contacts)
• Export backups (Save in Dropbox, Google Drive, email)

3. How to remove a contact from a group on iPhone and iPad using iCloud.com:

On your Mac or Windows PC open an internet browser like Safari or Internet Explorer and log in to iCloud. You can delete a group or a contact within a group at any time. You can’t delete the default ‘All Contacts‘ group.

Delete a group:

1. Select the group you want to delete.
2. Then press the Delete key.

Deleting a group doesn’t delete the contacts it contains.

Remove a contact from a group:

1. Select the group that contains the contact you want to delete.
2. Select the contact, then press the Delete key.

Deleting a contact from a group removes it from that group only.