Don't penalize my bad typing!

March 18, 2008 1:50 PM

Is it possible to edit the auto-complete list in gmail?

I mistyped my wife's email address once, so now in addition to [e-mail] I have an auto-complete listing in the "to" field of Gmail that appears as [e-mail] - and of course the incorrect one always comes up first in the Gmail auto-complete list. Is there any way to edit this list so that I can remove only the incorrect one?

I'm using Firefox 2.0, XP (sp2), and I'm not using a mail client - just using the Gmail interface. I searched the Gmail help and couldn't really find anything useful there.

posted by pdb to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: Gmail attempts to autocomplete based on email addresses in your Contacts. (By default, every address you send to is added to your contacts. You can change this.)

Just delete the unwanted address from your contact list.
posted by winston at 1:56 PM on March 18, 2008

Response by poster: Winston -

Thanks for the info. Where can I change the setting that auto-adds addresses to my contacts? I couldn't find it in the settings.
posted by pdb at 2:02 PM on March 18, 2008

If it's actually Firefox that's doing the auto-complete (same way it does for URLs, or search terms, or in fact any other text box on any other web form) you can get rid of unwanted autocomplete entries just by pointing to them with the mouse (don't click, just point) and hitting the Delete key when they highlight.
posted by flabdablet at 2:31 PM on March 18, 2008

If it's actually Firefox that's doing the auto-complete

That's funny, it's in the Google CSS theme. And I have auto-complete turned off in Firefox. No.

I've never found a switch to turn off the auto-adds. The predictive entry in that box goes directly to the address list, as far as I can tell. So, just use it, and you won't make typos, and this won't be a problem. Delete the contacts you do typo.
posted by Netzapper at 3:12 PM on March 18, 2008

Where can I change the setting that auto-adds addresses to my contacts?

Hm. I can't find it now. The Settings page has changed alot since I looked at it last so I don't know if I imagined it or just can't find it.
posted by winston at 4:24 PM on March 18, 2008

There's a hack. Try it out. Say I wanted to add "Joe Schmoe" to my contact list and make it so that I can automatically type "schm" and it'll pop him in as per usual. I will demonstrate:

In the "to" field, I type (all of this):(dammit it's eating my code, lose the space after the <> "Joe Schmoe" <>

And fill it in. Now "Joe Schmoe" is added, with that as his email, to my contact list. The regular gmail autocomplete stuff applies. Also, gmail does the autocomplete w/ some fancy ajax, NOT firefox.

One last thing---the new GTD Inbox is out---give it a go, it's uhhhmazing.
posted by TomMelee at 5:48 PM on March 18, 2008

BAH. It looked ok in the preview. Angry face. Basically, you put their name in quotes as you want it in your contact list. "Joe Schmoe"

Then between the brackets, <>, you put their email address, right after their name in quotes. Way easier than I've described it, would make more sense if meta wasn't eating my codez.
posted by TomMelee at 5:50 PM on March 18, 2008