How do you clear your 'Recent' contacts?

surefireobject has the answer.

 

Setttings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Scroll down to Contacts section and see Show in App Switcher.

 

You can turn it off but you can't clear it. You are correct that deleting the message or the call log does not remove them from recent.

Written about here, under the assumption you're texting an ex: http://mashable.com/2014/09/18/ios-8-contacts-privacy/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfYWptbnVsbHZuNmZpaXRobSJ9

 

Dang it , it looks bad when my wife always sees my girlfriends pic at the front if the list

 

Turn off recent, only use favorites, move wife one in front of girlfriend, and enjoy that she now knows she's #1.

 

just use male names for them :X

 

I posted what seems to be a bug in another thread about Recents and sent feedback to Apple.

I usually delete messages (SMS & iMessage) to keep things organized. So if you have a recent in the app switcher screen and you select message without having a previous message, it will default to the 1st phone number in their contact card. So I had many contacts with their home number 1st followed by mobile/iPhone number. What happens is it tries to send a message to their home phone.

Spend an hour re-doing all contacts so the 1st number is mobile. Did the same for my wife's phone as well. Yikes!!

 

Thanks for the great response. Not enough people say "THANKS!" around here when someone responds quickly and provides the exact answer everyone else is looking for. Your post was exactly what I was looking for.

Thank you for being a very helpful member of the MacRumors community!

 

I solved this issue by only having one girlfriend at a time

 

Sharing a common Apple ID (to share purchases) on all my devices at home including the kids phones nearly got me into strife.... iMessages replicate across all devices!!! Imagine the effects of an Unusual iMessage on all devices.... Have not activated this now, but will consider using this as we can share purchases under home sharing.... Phew!!