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cowbellallen

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2007
165
13
I have a contact that has been deleted from my iPhone for about 6 months. Whenever I draft a new text message and type in the first letter of the old contact's name, their info and phone number still appears. This is driving me nuts because I have a different contact with the same name and don't want to have the old contact still listed.

When I do this, I have no saved text messages at all. The contact is definitely gone from my iPhone everywhere else but here.

I have even assigned the old contact's number to a new contact I named 'gonad'. When I saved the number and typed in the old contact name into a text message draft, the old contact is gone! But when I delete the new contact, the number and old contact reappear when I try to draft again.

I have tried restoring and backing up, not to mention look for anyone that has successfully been able to do it. Please let me know if you've had success with this issue.

To recap:

• A contact was deleted 6 months ago
• The phone number is no longer saved anywhere
• I have no saved text messages on my iPhone
• I can only get rid of the contact by assigning the phone number to a new contact, which I don't want to do. I just want it gone!
 

VSMacOne

macrumors 603
Oct 18, 2008
5,760
2,741
Have you tried just doing a Reset All Settings? That might take care of it.
 

Gav2k

macrumors G3
Jul 24, 2009
9,216
1,608
Settings > general > spotlight search.

Turn everything off exit the menu restart your phone and try typing it again. If its solved you can choose to turn spotlight on
 

cowbellallen

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2007
165
13
Settings > general > spotlight search.

Turn everything off exit the menu restart your phone and try typing it again. If its solved you can choose to turn spotlight on


This did nothing. Any other tips? I keep accidentally sending texts to this number my sister no longer has!
 

cowbellallen

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2007
165
13
How many people have you texted in the last 6 months? im not asking the number of texts but how many people have you texted. Just write "this is a test message" and send it to 20-25 people... the recent contact should be gone this way. It's a recent contacts list, which just records the numbers you have texted in the past.

Ah, really? I only text the same 13-16 people MAX at any given time. And as I always accidentally message my sister's old number, I guess it stays on the contact list?
 

jer04

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2012
237
7
Townsville, Australia
I have the same issue. It's very annoying since the problem has been there for a really long time and apple is not doing anything to fix it. I have been googling about it and the only solution seems to be restoring as new.
 

Ocean20

macrumors newbie
Dec 15, 2012
7
0
The phone stores this information in cache memory. The only way to get rid of it is to restore the phone as new but given time the issue will appear again. I suggest you just ignore this and with time the memory will be overwritten
 

ParadisA330

macrumors newbie
May 30, 2013
1
0
Yes, it's very annoying. It seems it would be a simple fix and I don't want to keep resetting my phone and reentering all my contacts when I want to delete someone.
 

Birdmagnus

macrumors member
Sep 7, 2012
34
0
I fixed this on my iphone yesterday by erasing all content and setting and then setting it up as a new iphone. Once you have it set-up, go to icloud and turn on contacts and they should be automatically ported over. Don't restore it from a backup.

Or at least thats what happened with mine, but i would recommend writing your contacts and phone number on a piece of paper before just in case something happens.
 

Thornb24

macrumors newbie
Jul 3, 2013
1
0
Not a fix but work around.

This is not really a fix but kind of a work around to stop you from sending to the wrong person.
Create a new contact with a name like "void" or anything really, with the old number as the number for that newly created contact. Now when you create a new draft and start typing the name of who you want to send to, the old number will still come up but will not have the same name so you won't click that one.
 
This is not really a fix but kind of a work around to stop you from sending to the wrong person.
Create a new contact with a name like "void" or anything really, with the old number as the number for that newly created contact. Now when you create a new draft and start typing the name of who you want to send to, the old number will still come up but will not have the same name so you won't click that one.

Brilliant. I did this and it helps. I used the "void" lol
 

Communicator

macrumors newbie
Mar 12, 2013
26
0
I found that workaround too.

I made a new contact called Xxxxxxxxxx ( I don't have any contacts starting with one X, never mind a series of them! ) and I assigned the old number to that.

Then I sent a text to that old number.

Then I deleted the new Xxxxxxxxxx contact, and the text message I sent.

The old number no longer troubles me, even though still in the message cache, because it has been reassigned to a deleted contact beginning with Xxxxxxxxxx, and that's a name I'll never be texting to again.

Great to be rid of what became a real pain, with seemingly no solution, other than setting the phone up again as a new handset.

Hopefully the folks at Apple tech. can sort this in iOS 7!


Communicator
 

oVerboost

macrumors 68000
Sep 17, 2013
1,561
1,036
United Kingdom
If I'm reading this correctly, this problem is simple! When on the new text message screen and you type in their name it will have a circled i next to it, click this and then go down to remove from list. Then it's gone...
 

guicho69

macrumors newbie
Dec 22, 2013
1
0
Removing old contacts

There is an easy way to make sure they do not appear any longer. Once you have deleted the phone number from your contacts, send a text to the number you deleted from your contacts and hit the contact on the upper right hand corner, there you will see the Phone icon, the facetime icon and the i icon...press the (i) icon and you will see the words (REMOVE FROM RECENTS) in red...remove and that is it...try and let me know...It has worked for me every time
 

macsation

macrumors member
Apr 7, 2009
73
18
Washington, DC
There is an easy way to make sure they do not appear any longer. Once you have deleted the phone number from your contacts, send a text to the number you deleted from your contacts and hit the contact on the upper right hand corner, there you will see the Phone icon, the facetime icon and the i icon...press the (i) icon and you will see the words (REMOVE FROM RECENTS) in red...remove and that is it...try and let me know...It has worked for me every time

Thanks so much for posting this. It works!
 

Erika_mo2

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2015
1
0
I finally know the answer to this!! When you are typing the name and the others come up, press the little info button and "REMOVE FROM RECENT FEED"

Your welcome!
 

technopimp

macrumors 6502a
Aug 12, 2009
645
219
I discovered this recently, and IMO it's not only a huge bug but a security risk. Even after wiping the phone and setting up as new, (AND signing in with a completely different iCloud account) those "recents" still show up.

In other words, anyone who's wiped and sold an iPhone very likely exposed some of your contacts to tie new owner, even if it was wiped by both parties.

Not good.
 
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