The Roster Purge Vector
For years, the native iOS Contacts app suffered from a bizarre, highly frustrating limitation: it was entirely impossible to delete more than one contact at a time. If you needed to purge dozens of outdated business associates or old acquaintances, you were forced to open each contact individually, scroll to the bottom, tap edit, and confirm the deletion. This made roster management on an iPhone incredibly tedious compared to using a desktop computer.
How to Delete Multiple Contacts at Once
Apple finally silently introduced a gesture-based method to select and eradicate multiple contacts simultaneously directly within the iOS interface.
1. Open the Contacts app on your iPhone (or open the Phone app and tap the Contacts tab at the bottom).
2. Scroll through your list until you find a group of contacts you wish to delete.
3. Use two fingers simultaneously. Press both fingers firmly onto the screen over the first contact you want to select, and hold them there for a split second.
4. While keeping both fingers pressed against the glass, drag them downwards (or upwards) across the list.
5. As you drag, every contact your fingers pass over will become highlighted in a light grey colour.
6. Once you have highlighted all the unwanted contacts, release your fingers.
7. Long-press (press and hold with one finger) on any of the highlighted, grey contacts.
8. A context menu will pop up. Tap Delete [X] Contacts (where X is the number of items you highlighted).
Confirm the deletion prompt, and the entire batch of contacts will be instantly purged from your device and your iCloud account.