Hello again readers! Dear Berry is here once again with a mailbag full of BlackBerry questions and woes. Today's question comes from Theo who asks:

Numerous contacts appear for the same name - from various sources. Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever I manually enter. Is there a way to have BB10 consolidate those into one contact?

For current users of BlackBerry 10, the contacts application should automatically link contacts based on certain criteria such as same first and last name, cell number, email address, and social networking accounts. As we are all familiar with the fact that duplicates can and do exist, there is a way to merge or link them so that they do only appear under one name. While there is more than one way to do this, I have found this to be the quickest method.

  • Go into the Contacts application and long press on a contact
  • From the side action menu tap on Select More
  • Tap on all of the contacts / names that you wish to merge (i.e. Local contacts, SIM contacts, Facebook contacts, Twitter Contacts, LinkedIn Contacts, etc.)
  • From the side action menu, tap Link Contacts

These steps should consolidate your contacts into one. 

If you would like to reverse this process and unlink contacts, simply go to the contacts name, tap on the Links icon at the bottom and tap Unlink next to each name in the list and then Save. This helps if you inadvertently combine two different people together. While some experience an issue with unlinking, I do find if you let some time pass or repeat the step it does take affect.

For more tips on how to use the Contacts application, check out our tutorial here 

See you next time!

Have a question about BlackBerry etiquette? Need advice on how to cope with your BlackBerry addiction? Dear Berry has you covered and there's no question too big or problem too small. Submit any of your BlackBerry woes by email to [email protected] or on Twitter @DearBerryCB.

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