Bring in your contacts and clean up duplicates
Import from iPhone, Google, Outlook, CSV, or vCard, then merge the duplicates safely.
What this is
Getting your existing address book into Tether, and fixing the mess it arrives in. Most address books have accumulated the same person three times over a decade of phone upgrades.
Before you start
One thing worth knowing, because people ask: only the contacts you pick are saved to your account. Tether reads your address book to show you what is there. The ones you do not select are never uploaded.
Steps
- Open Settings and choose import.
- Pick a source — your iPhone, Google, Outlook, a CSV, or a vCard file.
- Review what Tether found. It flags likely duplicates as it goes.
- Choose which contacts to bring in.
- Work through the duplicates. Tether shows you both versions side by side and what the merged card would look like before anything is merged.
What to expect afterward
Merging is reversible. A merged contact can be separated again, and deleted contacts go to Recently Deleted rather than disappearing.
If you import the same source again later, Tether recognises what it already has instead of creating a second copy of everything.
Troubleshooting
Two people are genuinely different but flagged as duplicates. Skip the merge. Nothing merges without your confirmation.
A merge took the wrong version of a field. Open the merged contact and edit it, or separate it and merge again.
Contacts are missing after import. Check that you selected them — the picker defaults to letting you choose rather than taking everything.
How many contacts can I have? 2,000 on the free plan, 5,000 on Tether+.