I do not care if a person I emailed 4 months ago is onlne.

December 31, 2010 12:45 PM

How do I get strangers off my Google chat panel? It seems that everybody I've ever emailed with a gmail address is there. I do not necessarily have ongoing business with them. I don't want to know when they're online, nor do I want them to know when I'm online. I know I can change my status, but that's not what I'm looking for. Help.
posted by Wordwoman to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Go into the 'Contacts' section on the left sidebar. Once there, you can click on 'Other Contacts' (which is where they'll most likely be located.) From there, you can select the ones you don't want, and then choose the 'Delete Contact' option from the "More Actions" dropdown in the top menu bar.
posted by Rewind at 12:48 PM on December 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you right click each contact in the chat list, there's an option for "never show". I don't see a way to quickly remove a whole bunch of people though.
posted by cosmicbandito at 12:48 PM on December 31, 2010

Oh, geez, I'm sorry. I was thinking you were accessing Google Chat via GMail which is what my instructions were specific to. If that's not the case, feel free to ignore (although that would still be a good way to get rid of a whole bunch of contacts at once.)
posted by Rewind at 12:50 PM on December 31, 2010

Click on the contact like you're going to start a chat with them. Click on the drop down menu for Actions, and select "Block [whoever]" They'll disappear from your list.
posted by CheeseLouise at 12:57 PM on December 31, 2010

You can also go to "Settings" and change the setting for "auto-add contacts" to "Only allow people that I've explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I'm online."
posted by gingerbeer at 1:00 PM on December 31, 2010 [4 favorites]

You'll still have to block or delete your current contacts on the list, I think, but changing that setting should keep future contacts from showing up automatically.
posted by gingerbeer at 1:01 PM on December 31, 2010

Just block them. You'll only block them from gchat, not any future emails. Y
posted by jourman2 at 1:16 PM on December 31, 2010