Contacts being added automatically on iPhone

I had this happen and found out how to fix it, for me at least.

On your Apple device where they appear, go to Settings > Contacts > Accounts > Choose the account that is causing this issue. In my case, it was Gmail. Choose Gmail, then disable Contacts. It will show:

Turn off Contacts

Are you sure you want to continue? All Gmail contacts will be removed from your phone.

Delete from My iPhone

Cancel.

I chose Delete from My iPhone and it removed all of the new ones that were added.

I figured out what's causing it. For some reason, the "Create contacts for auto-complete" setting in Gmail settings affects this. If you have "When I send a message to a new person, add them to Other Contacts so that I can auto-complete to them next time" selected, it will add any new email address used to your iPhone Gmail contacts. If you change the Gmail setting to "I'll add contacts myself," it doesn't happen.

The weird thing is that it does add it to the "Other contacts" in desktop Google Contacts, but not to the main "Contacts" group in desktop Google Contacts. Unfortunately, it seems that the iPhone Gmail contacts syncs both the "Contacts" group and any new email address added to the "Other contacts" group on desktop Google Contacts.

I don't want to have to use this work-around, because I like a previously used email address to auto-populate when I start typing in the To: field when composing an email in Gmail on desktop. I just don't want that email address added as a new contact in my iPhone Gmail contacts.

Maybe this is an iOS bug?

The instructions to change it if you want to do the work-around are from: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7345608

To solve this problem:

On your Iphone in a broswer go to gmail.

select the account in the drop down

select "manage accounts on this device."

choose your gmail account

"manage google account"

slide the menu to the right and select "people and sharing"

select "contact info saved from interactions".

if you have more than one google account you will need to do it for each account on your iphone.

Hope this helps!

Check your settings under siri make sure suggestions is toggled off

I would recommend everyone upgrade to iOS 17.2.1. I was having this issue in iOS 17.1 and after upgrading to 17.2 I no longer have the issue. I didn't do anything else. Subsequently upgraded to 17.2.1 today and still no issues. Hope others have the same experience after upgrading.

This is not exactly correct. It is not on the left navigation panel; it is on right side of your Gmail account screen. Click on the gears icon for settings. Click “all settings”. Scroll down to close to the middle of the page where it reads “ create contacts for auto complete”. Click “I’ll add contacts myself”. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click save changes.

On the right side of your Gmail account screen, Click on the gears icon for settings. Click “see all settings”. Scroll down to close to the middle of the page where it reads “create contacts for auto complete”. Click “I’ll add contacts myself”. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click save changes.

That's because Gmail saves the sender's contact in your phone.

You can change that in the Gmail settings.

Go to General >

TKaplan21 Said:

"Contacts being added automatically on iPhone: I have noticed many contact cards in my Contacts that I didn't add. They are people I sent emails to using Apple Mail on my Mac. How do I stop this from happening? Running the new iOS17 on a new iPhone 15 plus."

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Disable or Enable iCloud Contacts:

Is Contacts enabled in iCloud? If so, then it may be contact cards gathered from another device. If not, then try enabling Contact in iCloud Settings on you devices.

I am having the same issue with outlook. So I believe this is an iOS issue. What I have going on is, when work sends me an email, with contact information for someone else (phone numbers are the issue I am having) it is adding that phone number from the email I receive to that persons contact record in my phone. That phone number belongs to someone else. So person A, (who is in my contacts) sends me an email to call person B (who is ALSO in my contacts) my iphone see's that email and adds person B's phone number to person A's contact record. I found this out by mistake, when I sent a text message to person A and the text went to person B!! (which created quite a problem...as you can imagine) so how do I turn this off? I can not find any option other than turning off my contact sync in the outlook part under the settings/mail in my phone.

It's Google. Go to Cortex21's post and follow the steps laid out. If you have more than one Google account, do it for all of them.

TKaplan21 Said:

"I do have Contacts enabled in iCloud on both my iPhone and my Mac. If I turn those off won't the syncing between those devices stop so that when I do update or add a contact myself it won't flow through to the other device?"

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Inaccessibly of Contacts on Devices:

Yes. If not downloaded, then it will not sync between your devices. For contacts to be available across you devices, then Contacts must be enabled in iCloud settings on all devices associated to your Apple Account.

I am having the exact same issue. I have an iPhone 15 and I just noticed recently that everyone I have sent an e-mail to using my Gmail account is now added as a contact. Unfortunately I can't say for certain when it started, but based on the e-mails sent and the contacts added I would say the last couple weeks. I reviewed my contacts directly on Gmail and they don't appear there as contacts. It's not all auto-complete entries either, only recent ones from the last couple weeks. I couldn't figure it out so I ended up just manually deleting all the contacts from the phone (roughly 200).