Computer Tips 247

Tips

How to Stop Gmail from Adding Contacts Automatically

ByAbi Waqas

Nov 15, 2022

Gmail automatically saves the recipient’s email address in your contacts when you send, reply or forward an email. If you don’t want to see them in your contacts list, here’s how to disable the function and delete auto-added contacts.

Gmail wants to make managing contacts as convenient as possible, so it automates contact creation and auto-completes email addresses when you’re composing. It also includes these contacts whenever you export contacts in Gmail and sync them to your phone. However, you can disable Google’s behavior altogether and prevent unwanted emails from crowding your Google Contacts.

First, open the Gmail website, login into your Gmail account, and click on the gear icon in the top-right corner.

Click the “See All Settings” button.
Under the “General” tab, scroll down to the “Create Contacts for Auto-Complete” section. As we mentioned above, Gmail enables the option to add an email address to your contacts automatically. Select the “I’ll add contacts myself” option.
Click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom.
Now, you can move out of Settings and back to the Inbox.

How to Remove Auto-Added Contacts

Head to the Google Contacts page and sign in to the account with unwanted emails in contacts. Next, select “Other Contacts” in the left column. All the email addresses Gmail added over the years will appear there.

Click one of the contact icons to select it.
Click the drop-down arrow next to the “Selection Actions” icon at the top and select “All.”
That will select all the email addresses in the “Other Contacts” list. After that, you can unselect the contact emails that you want to keep.
Next, click the three vertical dots at the top, and select “Delete” to remove the unwanted contacts.
That’s it. Removing those unassigned emails will reduce the size of your contacts list and make transferring contacts between your Google accounts a breeze.

By Abi Waqas

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.