How do you delete recent contacts in your text history

[melissak12213]

When you go to create message, you have to type in each single letter on your keyboard one at a time. For each letter people and or numbers will pop up as recents, there will be the little I next to it for information.. Click that. It'll say in red remove from recents. And if you do this for every single letter on your keyboard and remove all your recents, it'll work. I just did it.

 

[Stef Arns Wong]

You don't have to reset your iphone. It's very EASY!! When you enter a number and it drops down, there should be a letter "i" on the right side of it. Press it n it opens new contacts for you to add. Scroll down n press "delete contact"!
Too Easy! I got a pic but don't know how to attach

 

[funegal]

ok here is the long awaited answer and I cannot believe I figured it out. You want to get rid of that persons number or email so you deleted it yet when you type in a letter they show up as a number or email you've used before right......urgh. Open a new text put in the letter then scroll down and click on their name/email(it will appear light grey), it will appear in the text, click on it( the name or email) it will turn green, hit it again and it will bring up a contact, even though you deleted the original. Hit the edit button in the top right. hit the email or number below the name and the delete button on the right will appear delete the number or email then go to the top and backspace the name out, DO NOT CLOSE IT OUT, when the screen is blank of all info hit the done button, it should go back to say New MMS, click that, it will go back to the original screen with the green box, click cancel. Now go put that same letter in the new text box and guess what its, GONE.

 

[beareed]

OMG! You made me laugh because I just wanted my ex's number gone and glad to know I am not the only OCD one. But you are right...most ex's are worth resetting the whole phone....Still....thanks for trying and posting.

 

[herrbutzie]

Don't know why people are having such trouble with this. It is so simple
click to create a new email. in the to dialog type in the name is if is a recent contact there is an arrow pointing to the right click on it, at the bottome you will see "Remove from Recents"i n RED click it voila recent contact no longer there. have to remove recents from mail app no imessage

 

[Pnkpnthr]

How to shut Off Recent History On the 5S. Go to Setting, Mail Contacts Calenders, scroll down to Show In App Switcher, Recent, now turn Recent Off. You can also shut Off Phone Favorite if you want at this point. Good luck and take care.

 

[Pnkpnthr]

To Delete Recent contacts on 5S go to, Mail Contacts Calender, scroll down to Show In App Switcher, select Recent, turn Off, you can also turn Off Favorites at this point. Look and they're gone.

 

[jdgiuliani]

Due to downloading a LOT on Bit Torrent, I have to completely reformat my Hard Drive about every 2 months. The pro's WAY outweigh the couple of hours reinstalling windows.
And since iTunes is the biggest piece of garbage application on the planet, and we are stuck with it if you have an iPhone, I have to reset my iPHone as new each time. Because when you re-install iTunes, it cannot read the iPhone, figure out what is on it, and set itself up so you can just continue using it.
I can assure you that this does not clear your text history. I moved from iphone 5 to Samsung Note 4 (for a month), now back to an iPHone 6 plus. The reason I found this thread is that this text history is causing me issues since it keeps old, invalid entries.

 

[jdgiuliani]

I have to reformat my computer hard drive ever 2-3 months, which includes re-installing iTunes each time.
Since iTunes is the biggest piece of garbage application in existence, I then must wipe my iPHone clean and setup as new each time.
I can assure you that this does NOT clear text history. I found this thread because that history is causing me issues with invalid contacts.
I tried setting the saved texts from Forever to 30 days, that did not do it either.

 

[Ledsteplin]

I have to reformat my computer hard drive ever 2-3 months, which includes re-installing iTunes each time.
Since iTunes is the biggest piece of garbage application in existence, I then must wipe my iPHone clean and setup as new each time.
I can assure you that this does NOT clear text history. I found this thread because that history is causing me issues with invalid contacts.
I tried setting the saved texts from Forever to 30 days, that did not do it either.

Where are you seeing contacts/texts you tried to delete?

 

[anon9601348]

Yes you can delete it...if i understand you correctly, when you type the first initial of person you want to text, a drop down box comes down and the name is still there although you have removed it from your contact list. To remove do as follows:
Make sure the list is showing with all the names for that alphabetical letter.

• Click the little information icon next to the name you want to remove from the list
• In red a line will say Remove from recents
• Tap the option

If this option does not show make sure you have upgraded. As the option may not appear on old versions, then try again. This should remove it from your drop down history list in messages.
Hope this helps...bless

 

[littlepeaces]

Okay, so this issue has been going on for a while. (Years at least!) And the last reply to this thread was a few months ago so who knows when someone will see this

(This post isn't about a solution, but about why it may be happening. So if you are looking for a solution, I apologize in advance...I just had a theory and wanted to share

I'm obviously here because I'm having the same issue. And as I'm reading these, I'm seeing a common thread: the recent contacts that are "sticking" at the top or being suggested by iMessage (even after being deleted are ALL EXes it seems. Not old colleagues, neighbors etc. But exes. Why?? iMessage suggests certain contacts before others for a reason. Interaction.

Is it possible that our exes are reading through old conversations & photos on their end and iMessage perceives that as an interaction between the two numbers/accounts and therefore is putting it as a recent??

I have two different exes that I've watched this with and they're always near the top of the list (when I type the 1st letter of their name) even though I haven't talked to one in almost 2 years and the other in 8 months. One is deleted and one is not. One is an android user and one is also iPhone.

Anyway...it was just a theory. I'd be interested to hear anyone else's input.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Okay, so this issue has been going on for a while. (Years at least!) And the last reply to this thread was a few months ago so who knows when someone will see this

(This post isn't about a solution, but about why it may be happening. So if you are looking for a solution, I apologize in advance...I just had a theory and wanted to share

I'm obviously here because I'm having the same issue. And as I'm reading these, I'm seeing a common thread: the recent contacts that are "sticking" at the top or being suggested by iMessage (even after being deleted are ALL EXes it seems. Not old colleagues, neighbors etc. But exes. Why?? iMessage suggests certain contacts before others for a reason. Interaction.

Is it possible that our exes are reading through old conversations & photos on their end and iMessage perceives that as an interaction between the two numbers/accounts and therefore is putting it as a recent??

I have two different exes that I've watched this with and they're always near the top of the list (when I type the 1st letter of their name) even though I haven't talked to one in almost 2 years and the other in 8 months. One is deleted and one is not. One is an android user and one is also iPhone.

Anyway...it was just a theory. I'd be interested to hear anyone else's input.

No, iMessage doesn't work that way. It just shows suggestions from your contacts, email, and maybe usage history. But iMessage doesn't try to connect any dots.

 

[sdbrady5]

Unreal this was brought up in 2013 and there is still no fix. I've searched the Internet for hours for a solution to this and brought my phone into an Apple Store with zero luck.

 

[Darko Maksimovic]

Hi, I`m using P10 Lite and I found a way few days ago. Open your contacts (phonebook) and go to contact which trace you want to delete. Click on three dots "more" and then "erase trace". This will delete every trace of that specific contact (call and message records, recent...) This is for Huawei, android 7.0 and EMUI 5.1

 

[Just_Me_D]

Hi, I`m using P10 Lite and I found a way few days ago. Open your contacts (phonebook) and go to contact which trace you want to delete. Click on three dots "more" and then "erase trace". This will delete every trace of that specific contact (call and message records, recent...) This is for Huawei, android 7.0 and EMUI 5.1

Welcome to the iMore Forums, and while we definitely appreciate your willingness to assist other members, please note a couple of things:

1. The date of the original post. In this instance, it was 5 years ago.

2. Things associated with Android should be posted at our sister site, the Android Central forum.

 

[Captain Kirk1]

It’s annoying but there is a solution, however you’ll have to keep doing it periodically. In messaging, when you start to type the name and all these other previous names or group messages pop up, Tap the “i” symbol with a circle around it which is to the right. If this is a single person‘s contact, you’ll get the option to “remove from recent‘s“. If it’s a group message, you’ll get a list of everyone in the message individually listed, which allows you to select only one number to send your new message to, or scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and select “remove from recents“ to remove that entire group message from your recent list. The same procedure applies when typing someone’s name in an email “to:” field.

It would be great if you could turn this “recent“ feature off so that it doesn’t continue happening but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do that. Nor is there a way to globally delete all your “recent” message/email history, you literally have to start typing a name to get recent results to show up. The only way to clear it out totally is to start typing each letter of the alphabet, and deleting all the results that pop up. And you have to do it separately for messaging and email to get it all. So it may take 20 or 30 minutes. The only other way to globally wipe the stuff out is to use iTunes on your computer to do a complete backup, restore of your phone as new, then restore your backup, which does not save restore “recent” history.

I had a similar complaint with the “spotlight“ search, but at least recent iOS updates made it possible to turn off spotlight search results for specific things; turning off spotlight search for email and messaging now means that swiping down and doing a spotlight search will no longer bring up results from my email or text messages. I wish they would do something similar for the “recents” feature in Email and Messaging.