Smart dialing shows all names multiple times

[tmjp]

I have a problem with the smart dial function showing the same names multiple times. All the names (that qualify in any conceivable way, either by numbers or letters) seem to be always listed at least twice, sometimes some are listed three times. (I think I once saw some name four times, but can't reproduce that now.) This is very annoying, as the dialpad already takes up most of the screen (which IMHO it should not). Tapping 8, for example, I only see a friend's name thrice, with another friend's name twice, when I turn the phone to horizontal. So two names take up five slots. This is unacceptable to me.

I suspect this may in part be caused by my having some names in one or more (local) groups and in the favourites. It seems that if a name is listed in all these tabs in the address book, it will appear three times. But sometimes it will appear three times even without being listed in all three tabs. I'm absolutely amazed at the fact that this is happening.

I was actually able to find ONE contact that only appeared once. It seems that she is not listed in my whatsapp contacts or in the google account contacts. So perhaps the smart dial lists all names from as many accounts as possible, which is completely dumb. I have also linked all contacts. In my opinion that should reduce the number of hits in smart dial, right?

I have no idea what to do here, so I really hope someone can solve this. Thanks.

[tmjp]

For me the problem was solved by going through my address book, opening every contact, and unlinking the contacts. That is, breaking the link between the contacts' addressbook info, whatsapp info, and whatever other lists they happened to be on. This can be done before or after setting the filtering of the addressbook to only show contacts from one source, in my case My Contacts of my google account.

Sadly, there is no quick one-click solution to unlinking all accounts, like there is for linking them. You'll have to do it manually.

It also seems to me that having all the different contact info linkied is kind of a default. Some of my contacts seem to still have linked info - mostly those that I have added recently, but haven't got around to unlinking.