The Apple Contacts app

As we transition to new employment, gain friends, or part with others, our contact lists take on duplicate contacts or contacts we need to delete. Here’s how you can manage multiple contacts from your phone and iCloud.

Your Contacts app can detect if you have multiple contacts running around. When you click on your Contacts app, you’ll notice a gray box with a message under your contact card.

Easily merge duplicate contacts.

This message will notify you that there are duplicates. Tap View Duplicates to view the duplicates you have. From this screen, you can view the contacts and decide whether to merge them.

To easily merge, simply tap Merge All then Merge Duplicates.

Additionally, you might have multiple cards for a contact’s Google or Yahoo accounts. You can link these accounts.

If your iPhone doesn’t detect duplicate contacts, follow the below instructions to merge contacts manually.

When you decide to finally comb through your contact list and prune the excess, here’s how you can manage multiple contacts straight from your iPhone.

Manage multiple contacts with a two finger swipe.

1. Open the contacts app.
2. Find the contacts you want to manage
3. With two fingers, tap and hold on the first contact.
4. Drag your two fingers across all the contacts you wish to manage.
5. As you drag, contacts will highlight in gray. Once you’ve selected all the contacts you want to manage, long tap on one until the menu appears.
7. From this menu, you can choose tasks like Merge Cards and Delete Contacts.

While this method is effective if the contacts are close in name, such as if you name colleagues “Work Bob” and “Work Jane.” However, if your contacts are all over the place, you can two-finger swipe left or right on a contact to highlight multiple contacts out of order.

To handle multiple contacts you’ll need to grab your Mac or PC and log into iCloud for additional control.

Using iCloud to manage multiple contacts gives you further control, allowing you to select multiple connections regardless of where they are in the contact list. So grab your Mac or PC and log into iCloud.com.

Right click to access options from the Contacts app.

1. From your iCloud dashboard, scroll down and click on the Contact app.
2. Click on the first contact you wish to manage.
3. While holding the Command button on your keyboard, continue clicking the contacts you wish to manage. Once you’re done selecting contacts, you can release theCommand button.
4. Click on the gear icon in the lower left hand corner to view options. The most useful function here is the delete function.

If you are using a Mac, you can cut out the log into iCloud step and follow the same steps within the Contacts app. The only difference is you’ll need to right-click for actions instead of navigating to a separate button.

We are at a stage where the line is blurring between password managers like 1Password and the way that Safari creates and stores passwords for you. Both have their advantages, but since Safari comes built in to the Mac, iPhone and iPad, at some point you are going to save a password there.

You may never notice or care, just so long as you always visit that password-protected website through Safari and on the same device, or at least the same Apple ID. But when a site’s IT staff have decided that everyone must use Chrome for no reason other than those engineers seem to like that browser, you have a tiny problem.

Or if you have some reason to think you’ve had enough of this and want to settle on solely using a third-party password manager app, you have an irritating problem of how to transfer passwords over.

There are two things you can do.

You’re going to have to type the password in to the new browser, or at least paste it. Since the odds are that don’t even know what your Apple-generated password is for a given site, first you have to find out.

And the way you do that is slightly different on the Mac than on iPhone or iPad.

1. Open Settings
2. Select Passwords
3. Authenticate that you’re you with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode
4. Scroll down to the website you want and tap on it
5. Tap Edit at top right
6. Copy the password that is now visible
7. Tap Done

1. Open Safari (not System Settings)
2. Choose the Safari menu, then Settings…
3. Click the Passwords key, right underneath the window title
4. Authenticate with Touch ID or passcode
5. In the window that appears, click to select Passwords
6. Scroll through the list of websites or use the Search box
7. Click on the site you want
8. Click Edit toward the top right
9. Copy the password that appears in a pop-up window, being careful not to change it
10. Tap Cancel

You now have your one password in the iPhone’s or Mac’s clipboard and can paste it into the new browser.

It’s quicker to do than to describe, yet it’s not something you’d want to do repeatedly.

So there is another way to get all of the passwords out of Safari at once. Instead of one item on your clipboard, you end up with one text file that contains everything.

Note that this requires a Mac, it can’t be done from an iPhone or iPad. Since all of your Safari passwords should be available to you on all your devices, this isn’t a problem — so long as you do have a Mac.

1. Open Safari on the Mac
2. Choose File, Export, and then Passwords
3. Confirm that you want to do this by clicking Export Passwords… on the dialog that appears
4. Choose where to save the file and what to call it
5. Authenticate that you are you with Touch ID or password

The reason for Apple asking if you’re really sure about this, is that there is a danger. The sole way to get passwords out of one app and ready to be brought into another, is to use a text file, and that is risky.

Safari saves your passwords in a .csv file, a comma-separated values one, which just about any app can then import. But just as apps can read the passwords, so can anyone who gets the file.

“WARNING,” says Apple in a support document. “Your passwords are exported to a CSV file. The CSV file is not encrypted and anyone reading the file can see your passwords.”

On the Mac, look for the password section in Safari

First you must import the passwords file into another app, such as 1Password or another browser, such as Chrome. And then you must delete the text file.

Don’t put it off until you’ve checked all of the passwords have successfully moved over to the new device and the new browser, delete it anyway. If something’s gone wrong, you’re just going to have to redo the password text file, so there is no benefit to keeping it around.

And, there are only risks in leaving a file like that around.

This could be the shortest tip you’ve ever read: it is not possible to combine two or more Apple IDs into one. If you’ve only ever had one Apple ID, this could also be the most puzzling tip you’ve ever read because it’s hard to imagine why there’s a problem.

Until you get more than one, in which case you quite suddenly appreciate just what a mistake that may have been.

Sometimes you get a new Apple ID through your work or school, and already have one. Or you elect to create a new one because you want to publish podcasts and keep that separate from your personal work.

Whatever way you accrue more than one Apple ID, once you have a couple then there comes the question of which one is really you. If you decide to subscribe to Apple Music, for instance, you have to pick one.

You could subscribe from each Apple ID separately and pay Apple over and over again. And the same for any service in the Apple One bundle.

Plus, if you download an app on your podcasting Apple ID but then want to use it on your personal one, you in theory have to buy it again.

It would be so good if Apple would please let us merge Apple IDs, but in the meantime, don’t look to a technical answer. Look to an organizational one instead.

The function of an Apple ID is to be one central login that keeps your purchases — apps, books, music, subscriptions — and all of your iCloud data in one place. It’s the key to how your iCloud documents are on all your devices, it’s the key to everything on your Mac.

So if you can’t actually combine them, you can decide how you’re going to use them — and effectively take steps to ease the potential confusions.

First, pick one. From now on, that is the one you use when you sign up to a new service, to a new website, or you download an app.

Sign in to that Apple ID on all of your devices and don’t sign out unless you have a specific reason. You will have a specific reason — it will be that you need to log in to somewhere with that other ID, or you need an app from there.

But if you can stick to one Apple ID for everything for the future, you are reducing your problems.

If you have subscribed to any service through any Apple ID but the one you’ve now picked as your main one, go through all of your subscription settings.

You might well need continuity of service for any reason — such as keeping access to data you store in a third-party cloud, or just leaving your Netflix watchlist intact.

See if you can export your data and whether you’ll be able to later re-upload it under a different account. If you can – and you do successfully export it — or if you have data that you’re not concerned about, then unsubscribe from the service.

Then switch back to your new main Apple ID and subscribe again from there. Import any data you exported.

If you can’t export your data, you need to keep using your other Apple ID and just remember that’s the one needed for this particular work. It isn’t ideal at all, but at least you can hopefully keep the use of this other ID to a minimum.

Note that App Store apps are different. While you can leave apps on the other ID and switch to that when you need them, there is a better way.

It’s counter-intuitive but it’s actually the way that Apple Geniuses recommend. If you have apps on one Apple ID and you need them on another, use Family Sharing.

That now lets you share app subscriptions as well as apps, if the developer allows it.

If you definitely do not want to use your other Apple ID ever again, be sure about that word “definitely.” It’s more likely that you won’t want to lose it forever because you’ve got apps downloaded in it, or you have websites where it’s how you login.

But if you truly definitely do want to ever use or even see your other Apple ID again, you can delete it.

Don’t delete your Apple ID lightly: it cannot be undone

Apple has a whole — and long — support document about how to delete an Apple ID. The short version is that you must backup all of your data safely, and also once this is done, it cannot be undone.

Seriously, if you’ve got multiple Apple IDs there is going to come a moment when you wonder if you’re paying for extra iCloud storage on both of them. It’s not as if you can treat that was one bucket of storage space, either — or not usually.

So until, or if, Apple allows Apple ID merging, you’re going to have to work around the problems.

At least by cutting down how much you use all but one of your Apple IDs, though, you can stop it all being such a regular inconvenience.

Turn on Live Captions to see a text transcription of your FaceTime calls.

The new Live Captions feature is new to iOS 16, and takes spoken conversations and displays them in written text at the bottom of the screen. The feature is handy during FaceTime calls, where it may be challenging to hear.

According to Apple, you can use Live Captions for podcasts, video conferencing, and in-person conversations. All you need is an iPhone 11 or newer, an iPad with at least the A12 Bionic chip, or a Mac with the new Apple Silicon processor.

Live Captions is still a beta feature, which means its functionality is still improving. There will be times when it works intermittently, crashes, or simply does not load. These are normal are you can report them to Apple.

Apple also doesn’t recommend using Live Captions during high-risk situations, like emergencies.

Before using Live Captions, you must activate the feature in settings. You can do that one of two ways— from the settings app or the FaceTime app.

1. Open your Settings app.
2. Scroll down and tap on “Accessibility.”
3. Under the “Hearing” section, tap on “Live Captions (Beta).”
4. To activate Live Captions for all apps, toggle the top Live Captions button.
5. To activate Live Captions for only certain apps, look for the “In-App Live Captions” section. Toggle the apps you want to have Live Captions, such as FaceTime.

You can change the appearance of the Live Captions text. Tap on “Appearance” and customize text size, text color, background color, and opacity.

You can follow these steps if you need to turn on Live Captions during a FaceTime call quickly.

1. Tap the “i” icon in the upper right-hand corner.
2. Tap the “Live Captions (Beta)” button.
3. Once you select the Live Captions button,” a message will appear. Click ok.

To turn the feature off, follow the same steps and unselect the “Live Captions (Beta)” button.

Once Live Captions are active and displaying text, you can control how you see the transcription.

1. Make the transcription window bigger by tapping the out-pointing arrows. To make the window smaller, tap the inward-pointing arrows.
2. You can pause the transcription by tapping the pause button.
3. Hide the transcription window by tapping on the left-pointing arrow.
4. To restore your transcription after you hide it, tap on the speech bubble button.

Older iPads still have plenty of life. You can still download old versions of apps.

Don’t panic if you get an error message saying you can’t download the latest version of an app. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get older versions of apps to run on your iPad.

Be aware that some apps and devices are too old to still function. For example, Apple only rarely provides extremely critical security updates or feature changes to operating systems older than iOS 13. If this is the case, you won’t be able to download older apps for that iPad.

Before we start downloading old apps for an older iPad, make sure your iPad has the latest iPadOS your device can support. Do this by going to “settings,” then “general,” then tap on “software update.”

You’ll also want to ensure your device has enough storage capacity. Check your storage capacity by returning to “settings,” then “general,” and finally tap on “about.” Scroll down until you see “Capacity” and “available.” You’ll want a couple of hundred MBs of data available for most apps.

Now let’s download some apps.

1. Open the App Store app.
2. Tap on your icon in the right-hand corner. This icon will either be your profile image or initials.
3. Tap on “purchased.”
4. Tap on “my purchases.”
5. Scroll through the list of your previously purchased apps. Apps not installed on your device will have the iCloud button for you to select.
6. Find the app you want to download. Apps that are no longer available will not appear on your previously purchased app list. Apple and developers often remove apps that are no longer supported.
7. When the “download an older version of this app?” message appears, click download.

Be patient with this process. Older iPads don’t have the same resources as newer models, meaning app downloads and pages may take longer to load.

Also, remember that older versions of apps may not have the same features or functions as their newer counterparts. There’s also no way to select which version of an app to download, and Apple will automatically download the latest compatible version, which could add additional strain on your device.

If you’re wondering how to get new apps you’ve never downloaded before, there’s a fix for that too, but you’ll need a newer iOS device. If you don’t have a newer device, ask a friend or family member if they know that they have a backup and if it’s okay to borrow theirs — because you’ll have to sign in to it with your Apple ID.

1. Sign in using your Apple ID from your older iPad. You must use the same Apple ID on both the newer device and the older iPad for this process to work.
2. Open the App Store and tap the search button on the bottom right.
3. Find the app you want to download and tap “get.”
4. Once the app finishes downloading, open the App Store on your old iPad.
5. Tap your profile picture or initials in the upper right corner.
6. Tap on “purchased,” then “my purchases.”
7. Find your newly downloaded app on your “my purchases” list.
8. Allow the iPad to download the compatible version.

There are some cases where the app you’re looking for never had an older version that your iPad supported. In this case, there’s no way to make that app work on your older device.