How to remove old annoying email address?

[Flotzie]

Hi Folks,
It's raining cats & dogs here........

Anyway, I digress.....

The problem: When I start typing the recipients name in the address field of an email, I only have to type the first two or three letters, then their email address pops up. BUT if for example they have changed their email provider, but kept the same prefix name, and the old address pops up as well as the new one, even though I've deleted the old address from both my iPad contacts and my Windows Live mail address book (pc) that I use with Microsoft mobile exchange on the iPad. How to I PERMANENTLY remove the old address?

I hope this makes sense

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

Hi Folks,
It's raining cats & dogs here........

Anyway, I digress.....

The problem: When I start typing the recipients name in the address field of an email, I only have to type the first two or three letters, then their email address pops up. BUT if for example they have changed their email provider, but kept the same prefix name, and the old address pops up as well as the new one, even though I've deleted the old address from both my iPad contacts and my Windows Live mail address book (pc) that I use with Microsoft mobile exchange on the iPad. How to I PERMANENTLY remove the old address?

I hope this makes sense

Do you want the bad news or the very little good news......

The bad news....

The iPad keeps a separate, internal, 'recently used email address' list that is completely separate from, and not in any way related to, your contacts list. The Mac has the same list but, on the Mac, there's a way to edit/delete this list. Sadly and incredibly, on the iPad, no such facility exists - there is simply no way to delete this list.....

OK - the partial good news....this list is of 'limited length' and old email addresses eventually 'drop off the end' of the list...

Many Members have complained about this; maybe Apple read iPad Forum and hopefully they'll eventually do something about it.

Tim
PS it's raining cats and dogs here too..but that's not unusual for Scotland..

 

[Flotzie]

Well, the rains good for the heather

Anyway thanks for detailed answer, sorry if it's been answered before, I didn't realise.

Do you think if I created a load of fictional addresses beginning with say an X or a Z then they would somehow bump the old unused ones off the the end of the stored list?

 

[Flotzie]

Well, the rains good for the heather

Anyway thanks for detailed answer, sorry if it's been answered before, I didn't realise.

Do you think if I created a load of fictional addresses beginning with say an X or a Z then they would somehow bump the old unused ones off the the end of the stored list?

Edit: I think this may be a dumb question :-(

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

Well, the rains good for the heather

Anyway thanks for detailed answer, sorry if it's been answered before, I didn't realise.

Do you think if I created a load of fictional addresses beginning with say an X or a Z then they would somehow bump the old unused ones off the the end of the stored list?

Hmmm... interesting idea. Some time ago I had a 'conversation' with twerppoet about this and we discussed whether the list was limited by physical length or time. If it's the first, then your plan could well work. If it's the second, then you'd be wasting your time. I don't even know of a workaround, either. Usually, for the iPad, annoying 'issues' have a workaround, but I've never seen one for this.

If you decide to give it a go and it works, let me know. I have a couple of annoying email addresses that are in this list that I'd love to get rid of. It's annoying if you're using an email address for the first time and you accidentally - but only slightly - mis-spell it. Then you keep getting prompted with it all the time, as you rightly point out.

Tim

 

[Flotzie]

Thanks for that. I'll experiment with it. It probaby won't work.

 

[Kaykaykay]

Glad the OP asked this question and Tim answered. I didn't know about the internal memorizing and have been meaning to check my contacts to see why random email addresses were popping up (which I didn't remember adding).

 

[twerppoet]

One way to avoid (to some extent) this hassle is to start entering the actual name of the recipient instead of the email address. As long as that person is in your Contacts app, the auto-complete should show matches for that contact (or others that match the partially filled out contact name).

So, if I want to send an email to John Smith, I just enter John Smith, not the part of his email address that I happen to remember. And of course, the closer I come to completing the name, the fewer choices I have to look at.

Of course if they are using their given name as part of the email address, this won't work all that well.

 

[twerppoet]

BTW, you can also start an email from the Contacts app by tapping on the desired address.