Gmail’s auto-complete list feature is helpful if you don’t want to type the entire email address of the regular recipients when sending an email. It saves you time and effort, not to mention the convenience of Gmail completing the address for you.
But, for some users, it does not help at all. You may not want to associate yourself with a few email addresses on your autofill list. There are times when you still have the old/outdated or invalid addresses of recipients. Your recipients might already be using a new email as their primary contact point. Having both the old and the new addresses stored in your Gmail auto-complete list memory will only result in confusion and potential mistake.
The best thing you can do is clean up and delete some of the invalid email addresses from your Gmail auto-complete or autofill list. That way, you will no longer see them when Gmail automatically fills up the recipient field of an email address from your contacts.
How to Remove Email Addresses from Gmail Auto-Complete or Autofill List
The steps to delete email addresses from Gmail auto-complete list takes only a few clicks on your Gmail account. Make sure you log in to your Google account first.
- On your browser, go to https://contacts.google.com.
- On the search bar on top, type the name or email address of the contact you want to remove.
- Click the contact’s name or email address.
- On the upper right corner, click the three-dotted icon.
- Select Delete.
- Click Delete to confirm.
How to Disable Gmail Auto-Complete List or Stop Autofill Feature
If you don’t want Gmail to autofill the recipient field with email addresses from your contact list, you can turn off and disable the feature completely.
- Launch Gmail on your device.
- On the upper right corner, click the Gear icon.
- Click See all Settings.
- Scroll down the Settings page and look for Create contacts for auto-complete section.
- Now, select I’ll add contacts myself. It will disable the autofill.
- Scroll down at the bottom and click Save Changes.
Which do you prefer? Having the Gmail autofill feature enabled or disabled? Do tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Did I miss it? I deleted the invalid email from the contact but it sill pops up to autofill when I start an email to that person. I don’t want to disable autocomplete and I don’t want to delete the contact. How do I delete the now invalid email from Gmail autocomplete?
Exactly!! I have the same problem with an incorrect email address that is NOT listed in contacts but appears as an option for auto complete – driving me nuts!! I note however your message is now 18 months ago……..you may have resolved, I haven’t 🙁
I found that there are two places you need to delete names from: 1) Frequently contacted and 2) Other contacts (this one is just above the trash icon).
followed directions and still have emails popping up!
EVERY customer service I ever emailed, friends who have died..can’t
get rid of their email address!
It worked! Thank you!
Same. I somehow did get to delete it in contacts – where it wasn’t showing up, and it STILL SHOWS UP in the autofill. Seems Google should have a simple solution – when it shows up, we press on it and we have the delete option!!!! Simple.
Infuriating!!!! There are people on my email whose name I do not want o see. How can Google not come up with a fix for this 😡
I found that there are two places you need to delete names from: 1) Frequently contacted and 2) Other contacts (this one is just above the trash icon).
I still have this problem. “I’ll add contacts myself” just doesnt work (and I have remembered to save changes)
I had this same problem. I turned off autofill because I want to add who I want to my contact list. Then I deleted everyone from the “Frequently contacted” list. I had only one person in my contact list and I still had a slew of names appearing in the drop-down. I went back and then saw lower down on the options list “Other contacts”. I clicked on that and more names appeared. I deleted all of them. Now the only person in my drop-down list is the one person that I added to my contact list. It appears to have worked, but only time will tell . . .
Made a mistake with someone’s email address. Changed it to correct version after Postmaster sent back email. Cannot remove the old wrong version from autofill despite removing it from all of the places mentioned in posts above.
Old wrong version automatically autofills when I start to type address. Search for this wrong email address to try and delete it in Google Contacts only brings up the correct version. How can it still be there and not at same time?
I have given up trying to fix this problem. My next move will be to pay someone to come to my home. I am sure glad to see that I’m not the only one who is exasperated by this very major gmail deficiency. I have tried every suggestion and then some but these damn email addresses that are not in my contacts list still keep popping up every time I want to send an email.
Why do we (millions!) continue to tolerate the countless Google/Gmail problems & NOT SWITCH TO A BETTER SERVICE?!?!?!
I like the feature in general, but I just want to remove one specific person (an abusive ex who turned out to be a murderer). I even blocked him, but every time I start typing the address of someone with the same first name (which happens quite frequently), I get to see the face of the murderer. Surely it should be simple enough to remove one specific person from the autocomplete, and you would think it would not suggest an address that had been blocked.
This way would have taken ”forever and a day”. Best Buy’s Geek Squad showed me how to bring up every adrs. in file alphabetically, 10 per pg. You check a box next to ones you want to delete. I wanted to reduce my file in order to save time when I send, i.e., a political message to individuals only, not businesses!! (Gmail has no scroll function for addresses starting with the same letter.) Note: Most of my contacting businesses is a one time event.
This was frustrating.
Go to https://contacts.google.com/u/2/other
Scroll down to the name you want to delete, hit the three .’s on right – select delete.
Good Luck!