iOS26 syncs Contacts favorites across devices using different cloud Contact services

[donnie3000]

I have two iPhones (one for personal use, another for work) both signed in to the same iCloud account. This has been the case for the last 10 years or so.

Each phone has always had its own separate contacts and Phone contact favorites. My personal iPhone syncs contacts to iCloud, but my work iPhone syncs to Exchange. This has worked perfectly for 10+ years.

Now that I have updated both iPhones to iOS26, the contacts favorites on each have been merged. This means I now have a single much longer list of favorites common to both devices, with the numbers from my work iPhone contacts being unrecognised (i.e. just being listed as a number without contact name) on my personal iPhone and vice versa.

For numerous reasons, having both phones signed into the same iCloud account is what I need, but I want a separate set of favourites for work and out of work.

Having spoken to Apple, they have acknowledged my issue, but confirmed this is intended behaviour in iOS26!!

The phone support guy sympathised, but said there was nothing that can be done.

Has anyone else been affected by this and/or have any intel on changes upcoming in 26.1….??

 

[simplynando]

This has been a frustrating update for me. I have 2 iPhones as well, 1 for personal use and 1 for work. I work in healthcare and need the info on my work phone to stay there and not on my personal phone. I also have 6 contacts that I have as “favorites” for work and about 5 contacts I save for personal. There has never really been an issue with this before as I use a separate iCloud account for work contacts. On my work phone, I disable iCloud sync for photos, messages, phone & FaceTime, contacts, or iCloud Drive. Since iOS 26, my contacts sync on both phones no matter what.

I know the easiest answer is “use separate iCloud accounts” but that is not practical. I use subscriptions that I share between both phones and I have my work phone on my Apple Care One plan with 2 phones, a MacBook, an iPad and Apple Watch. If I were to sign into a different Apple ID on my work phone, then I cannot bundle this device with my Apple Care plan (I have tried this already). This is frustrating and there should be a way to use the same account on both phones without this issue.