The method of fixing this can take a bit of time, but go into your Settings under Accounts and click on each app that syncs your contacts. Then click on the sync settings for that app and turn off contacts. That should remove any duplicates etc.
Be sure to click " ✓ Accept as Solution" when you find an answer that works for you.
Please note, notification emails are a DO NOT REPLY address, you must log-in on the community page in order to respond.
This works to a certain extend with (at least) one notable exception: Whtasapp!
Whatsapp will turn contact syncing on by itself after a while and if any contact in the phone book is added or changed - and I have not found a way to prevent that from happening.
As a result I now have all whatsapp contacts as duplicates in my phone contacts (somtimes triplicates, if contacts have two whatsapp numbers).
Plus they are out of order because Whatsapp dos not properly detect first, last and middle names messing up the phone book completely.
I suspect this is an Android/Whatsapp problem. But it could easily be solved, if the phone app would allow filtering just as the contacts app does.
Why not include the contact app features (such as filtering and custom lists) into the phone app and do away wiht the contacs app altogether??
@bulldog2001can you confirm this also stops Whatsapp from syncing contacts back into your Phone App contact list? Or does Whatsapp automatically reactivate the contact syncing as soon as you add new contacts on the phone that also have whatsapp?
You can test that by
1. deactivating whatsapp contacts sync in settings as explained by SamsungJace
2. deleting a contact who also has a Whatsapp chat from your phone contacts (it is enough to just delete that persons phone number from the contact)
3. confirming that the chat with that person is no longer showing the name but only that person's phone number as chat name
4. adding that contact back to your phone contacts
5. confirm Whatsapp comntact syncing is still deactivated in settings (which I expect will be reactivated without your permission)
This is the problem many people in forums are struggling with.
