How do I PERMANENTLY delete contacts from my iPhone?

when you delete the contact from your iphone go into messages. select to type in a new message. type in the name of the contact you just deleted from your phone. name still comes up right? next to the name on the right side there should be an exlamation point in a circle click that and there should be an option to remove from recents. click that and the name will no longer come up when you type it into your message name search. hope this helped😉

To permanently get rid of deleted contacts from your phone to stop appearing when you type in the first few letters of their name, simply type their name as if you were going to start a new text message with them, their name will appear with a blue "i" next to it, hit that, then hit "Remove from Recents". Type their name in again and you will see that it doesn't show up.

i know that!! After you delete them and then compose a new text it is still there. Basically you know when you send an email to someone and do not store them it still auto populates their name. This is what happens with my phone. I Google this issue and learn some knowledge about data eraser tips. Maybe most people still don’t know that actual contents of file are not really deleted when performing simple deletion operation on your iPhone or other devices. But they are just marked for deletion and not shown in the file system of your iOS device. The actual data are still physically present on your iPhone. For iOS system, the only way to completely erase the data is to overwrite the original contents by using iPhone data eraser app. this is the guide on how to permanently delete contacts on iPhone.

Another method that you can learn some experience of erasing deleted contact from iPhone on Internet. As I know, Google has a lot of tutorials about this issue. You can select the deleted data what you want to erase.

That has nothing to do with Contacts app. These number are stored in the Message app cache and there is no way to clean it up unless you restore your iPhone as new.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4363225?answerId=20541177022#20541177022

I tried this but there's no information icon that pops up . Do you know if it's because the phone is jail broken or maybe because it's not up to date on the IOS 7

i know that!! After you delete them and then compose a new text it is still there. Basically you know when you send an email to someone and do not store them it still auto populates their name. This is what happens with my phone. I Google this issue and learn some knowledge about data eraser tips. Maybe most people still don’t know that actual contents of file are not really deleted when performing simple deletion operation on your iPhone or other devices. But they are just marked for deletion and not shown in the file system of your iOS device. The actual data are still physically present on your iPhone. For iOS system, the only way to completely erase the data is to overwrite the original contents by using iPhone data eraser app. this is the guide on how to permanently delete contacts on iPhone.

The same thing happens to me, but it doesn't require deleting a contact. When I delete/replace a contact's number, the Messages.app still autocompletes the number with the contact's name and references it as "other".

However,If you want to use a third-part iPhone data eraser software to erase all contacts on iPhone permanently before selling. Is there any way to erase everything on iPhone permanently without restore to factory setting?

I was looking at some things on my iPhone 5 and saw some old text messages from my ex on the spotlight search. I was in awe because I thought I erase iPhone contacts before selling but you can see them on the spotlight search :/ lets just say it was a bad breakup and every time i see his name i get bad memories.

I would love to know if there is a way - without doing a factory reset or using 3rd party software - to permanently erase all trace of a single contact.

My son has an iPhone4S running iOS 8.4 and with the first couple of mobile phone contacts he added he forgot the leading 0 (I'm in Aust). Not suprisingly he couldn't message them successfully. But after editing the contacts to correct the mistake the problem persists. Like others he can receive texts from the contact and make or receive phone calls, just can't send texts. All other contacts added correctly from the get go work just fine.

I've tried the various suggestions on this and other threads but with no luck.

Wondering (hoping) that maybe it's an iOS8.4 thing which might magically get fixed in 8.4.1?

Type in the deleted contacts name in iMessage, click the information icon to the side, and click the remove from recents option.

This worked, Thank you so much. But I did something slightly different. Instead of searching for iMessage you can simply go to your photos and try sending it by message and type the persons name once it comes up click on this ℹ on the right , then click remove from recent . This should permanently delete that contact from your iPhone.

It's only in the cache. The entry in Contacts is gone.

Try Rest All Settings in Settings > General > Reset

@Jandem96 ^this works