Learn how to manage your contacts on iCloud.com

Having your contacts synced to every device you own through iCloud is great, and it really helps to stay up to date. However, with so many devices uploading data whenever you add new contacts, it can sometimes get a little cluttered, and if you want to do a little spring cleaning the best place to do it is right on the iCloud website. The site itself is highly capable, and allows you to view things like Calendars and Mail, as well as downloading your latest iWork documents to continue working on. It also gives you full access to your contacts with an interface that is very similar to that of the native Address Book app in Lion. This lets you add, edit and delete contacts, as well as giving you the ability to create new groups and change the way your contacts are displayed. If you need a tidy, dive straight into this guide and find out what you need to do.

Step 1: Login

Head to www.icloud.com and log in using your Apple details. Tick the box under the login options if you want to automatically be logged in every time.

Step 2: Get in contact

You will now see five icons. You can access plenty of other features here, but for now you need to click on the Contacts icon.

Step 3: Duplicates

The display will be familiar to anyone who has used the Address Book in Lion. Here we can see a duplicated contact, so let’s delete one of them.

Step 4: Erasing contacts

You can either click Edit in the bottom-left corner of the contact card and scroll to find the Delete button, or click the contact and press Backspace.

Step 5: Get a new card

Your card will have a small user icon. If your card isn’t right, select the one you want to make your card and choose Make This My Card from the Settings menu.

Step 6: Preferential

If you click on the Settings cog and choose Preferences, you can change things like the layout of addresses and the way names are displayed.

Step 7: As a group

It’s also possible to select several contacts at once. Hold the Command key and click those you want. You can either delete the lot, or create a group.

Step 8: Grouping

Click Create Group and you’ll be taken to this screen, where you can change the name of your group or delete it. This is great for the fast sorting of contacts.

Step 9: Bookmarked

Click the bookmark at the top of the page and you will swap back to the list and card view in the group that you currently have selected.

(Click on the image below to zoom in and view the annotations)