Google Adds Contacts Automatically?

[billyk]

I've been through all of the settings in GMail on the 'net and on my Droid. Still, my Droid adds contacts automatically.

How can this be turned off??

 

[hookbill]

I've been through all of the settings in GMail on the 'net and on my Droid. Still, my Droid adds contacts automatically.

How can this be turned off??

You have to take the contacts you don't want off of your "my contacts" list. This is probably best done on line in Gmail. Check the contact and then click groups and then remove from "my contacts." The contact should be removed from your phone but stay in your contacts list.

 

[Corinacakes]

in settings>>accounts & sync turn sync off for your gmail account

 

[Jonny Kansas]

in settings>>accounts & sync turn sync off for your gmail account

^Agreed! This is the best way if you want to stop gmail from automatically putting ALL contacts in your phone.

If you want some gmail contacts in the phone, and some not, the suggestion above corinacakes is what you want.

 

[billyk]

Sorry for not being clear. I understand about the "My Contacts List" (at least I think I do!) and I know how to turn off sync.

What I'd like to stop is when I respond to an email on my Droid from someone who I have never communicated with before, and not likely to communicate with again, and then I find that this person is listed in my contacts list on my Droid. Shouldn't I be asked for this?

I've been surprised a number of times in the past month by people, sometimes only identified by their email address (as their "name") that surface in my contacts list on the Droid.

 

[hookbill]

Sorry for not being clear. I understand about the "My Contacts List" (at least I think I do!) and I know how to turn off sync.

What I'd like to stop is when I respond to an email on my Droid from someone who I have never communicated with before, and not likely to communicate with again, and then I find that this person is listed in my contacts list on my Droid. Shouldn't I be asked for this?

I've been surprised a number of times in the past month by people, sometimes only identified by their email address (as their "name") that surface in my contacts list on the Droid.

Google, for whatever reason remembers everybody you send an email too. And yes, it sets it up in it's contacts.

I find this comes in handy....sometimes....and annoying many. Only thing you can do is to go in there and manually delete it out. I know of no other way.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Ah yes...sync will still prevent gmail from adding these folks to your phone.

A couple options here aside from disabling sync...delete the email address from your gmail.com contacts if/When're youre on the computer.

Or

If you don't have any IMPORTANT contacts that you only have an email address from, you can set your contacts list on your Droid to display only contacts with phone numbers. That's what I do, because I don't email from the Droid TOO often, and if I do, its usually a reply. To do this, go to your contacts, press menu, display options, then check show only contacts with phone numbers.

Hope one of those options works for you!

 

[hookbill]

Ah yes...sync will still prevent gmail from adding these folks to your phone.

A couple options here aside from disabling sync...delete the email address from your gmail.com contacts if/When're youre on the computer.

Or

If you don't have any IMPORTANT contacts that you only have an email address from, you can set your contacts list on your Droid to display only contacts with phone numbers. That's what I do, because I don't email from the Droid TOO often, and if I do, its usually a reply. To do this, go to your contacts, press menu, display options, then check show only contacts with phone numbers.

Hope one of those options works for you!

True, that will work for the phone. It still shows up on your contact list on google. A good spring cleaning every once in a while is in order for that thing.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I find it handy to leave them on gmail.com just in case (for a while), but like I said, I don't have any people I keep in touch with that don't have a phone number for.

That said, I just did some spring cleaning online last week, and it definitely IS nice!

 

[billyk]

Thanks guys!

I would have hoped that Google would *ASK THE USER* before they take action on our data - it's a basic "User Control" guideline in human factors. Automatically merging contacts is yet another PIA.

OK, so I guess it's manual "Spring Cleaning" every couple of weeks to fix/reverse what Google does with our data.

Nice...

 

[gardobus]

This thread is a bit old but when you send something in GMail, it auto saves the contact under "All Contacts". If you go to http://google.com/contacts and move all the actual phone numbers that you want saved into a separate category ("My Contacts" for example) then they will be separate. Then go into Contacts on your phone, press Menu, tap Display Options, then click your gmail address, and uncheck everything except "My Contacts" (or whatever group you saved them into.

Works for me...