Whittling down list of names in iPhone email

July 10, 2009 3:14 PM

I send email from my 3G iPhone often (via my gmail account). When I start to type an email address in the TO line, every single name I've ever emailed that begins with that first letter pops up. The names are NOT in order of how often I email these people, and seem to be in some completely random order that never changes. People at work whom I've maybe had to email ONCE from my phone seem to always come to the top, leapfrogging over sisters with the same letter in their name whom I email daily. Is there any way I can edit this list and eliminate those work names from coming up? I always worry that I'll hit the wrong button and mis-send an email.
posted by GaelFC to Technology (10 answers total)

If you are syncing with a Mac you can probably delete them from the Address Book application. That might fix it. Maybe.
posted by chairface at 3:52 PM on July 10, 2009

Are you syncing contacts through exchange or on your computer? If the former, you should be able to go into gmail, click on contacts and move people you don't want in your address book and move them out of "My Contacts" and into "All Contacts" (only My Contacts should be synced).

Are these people also showing up in the Contacts app?
posted by null terminated at 6:05 PM on July 10, 2009

Nope, these emails aren't in Contacts. They're one-offs that I typed in or simply responded to and the program assumes I'll want them again.
posted by GaelFC at 7:18 PM on July 10, 2009

I don't know anything about iPhones, but I do use gmail and it will do that very thing with the names popping up. Perhaps it is your account that is responsible and not the phone? If so, you can edit your gmail contacts to delete the ones you don't want. Hope that helps.
posted by orme at 7:39 PM on July 10, 2009

+1. It's Gmail, not the phone.
posted by relucent at 7:40 PM on July 10, 2009

Oops. I see that you are saying they aren't in contacts, but gmail does in fact save every single email address you send to in your contacts. I just checked mine and I have 282. I don't even know 282 people. Are you clicking on "All Contacts"?
posted by orme at 7:42 PM on July 10, 2009

I don't know anything about iPhones, but I do use gmail and it will do that very thing with the names popping up.

Same here. When I log into gmail from my desktop there's a little tiny x next to (many of) the names that populate that same drop-down menu. They go away after I click that.
posted by carsonb at 8:08 PM on July 10, 2009

Assuming you're referring to the iPhone's Mail app, and not Gmail accessed via Safari, there is no way to do this without wiping and restoring the phone. Every link I found via a Google search boiled down to this.
posted by cerebus19 at 8:36 PM on July 10, 2009

OP: I know what you're talking about, but I've never been able to figure out how to clear them out. Cerebus19's response directly above is on the right track. I have my contacts syncing between Address Book on my Mac, MobileMe, Gmail, and iPhone. I judiciously clean out every address Gmail automatically adds to it, but I'm still seeing email addresses in iPhone Mail's autocomplete that I sent messages to only once ("[e-mail], or something that I wouldn't need again). It's definitely the Mail application at fault here, not Address book or Gmail.
posted by jroybal at 9:22 PM on July 10, 2009

In the Mail.app program on a Mac, you can delete those names:

Open Mail>Window>Previous Recipients to delete the unwanted addresses.

Maybe if you delete them on your mac, and then synchronize with your iPhone, they will be deleted on your iPhone. I don't know, but it's worth a try.
posted by conrad53 at 10:01 PM on July 10, 2009