Deleted contact info keeps coming back

[Doctor Q]

I have all of my Macs and iPhones and iPads synced with MobileMe. Which means everything syncs with everything. It's very handy.

But... I can't delete Contact or Address Book information that is obsolete.

For example, suppose I have two email addresses for my pal Steve:

1. work email: sjobs@next.com
2. work email: sjobs@apple.com

I want to delete the first one but:

• If I delete it from Address Book on one of my Macs, it syncs back in from MobileMe or one of the other devices.
• If I delete it from my Contacts in MobileMe, it syncs back in from Address Book on one of my Macs or one of the other devices.
• If I delete it on an iPhone or iPad, it syncs back in from Mobile Me or Address Book.

Ask an expert

I asked the genius at an Apple Store and he said he didn't know but he would ask an even genius-ier employee. That employee said to delete it from MobileMe since that's the master copy.

But that doesn't work. If I delete sjobs@next.com from MobileMe (or Address book or an iPhone or iPad) I get

1. work email: sjobs@apple.com

but the next day it's back to

1. work email: sjobs@next.com
2. work email: sjobs@apple.com

How do you delete a property of a contact or Address Book entry when MobileMe and Address Book and a bunch of i-devices are synced?

 

[discounteggroll]

so you've gone on the me.com website and deleted the unwated email address?

 

[Morod]

I'm not very genuis-y, but first I would disable Contacts syncing in MM preferences, (System preferences>MobileMe>Sync), delete the accounts on all devices, then re-enable Contact syncing in MM preferences.
Hope this helps!
Great avatar, btw.

 

[Doctor Q]

so you've gone on the me.com website and deleted the unwated email address?

Yes, both before and after the Apple employee told me that was the proper way to do this.

I'm not very genuis-y, but first I would disable Contacts syncing in MM preferences, (System preferences>MobileMe>Sync), delete the accounts on all devices, then re-enable Contact syncing in MM preferences.
Hope this helps!
Great avatar, btw.

Thanks, but deleting all of the accounts on all devices (some at work, some at home, some my wife carries around) isn't much better than deleting just the unwanted entries from each device. Either way, this is something I have to do now and then and I can't find any "proper" way to do it.

 

[thunderbunny]

I would try turning off syncing on one of your macs, deleting all the redundant items and then reset the sync data on mobileme with data from that mac. Maybe removing your mobileme account from iPhone/iPad before doing this and re-set it up afterwards if they are syncing the unwanted data back to mobileme.