How to delete old addresses that appear in auto complete list in iMessage

I think you're freaking out over nothing.

In general this has been a very useful feature over the years in the Mail app. There, it only remembers users that have sent you email and that you have sent email to, in case you want to add them to your address book later. It doesn't share that information with anyone. In fact, in the case of Email I don't think it leaves the computer at all.

In the case of iMessage, it also probably doesn't leave the computer or your phone, although I cannot be sure. Since messages appear both on your phone and your computer, the same process that keeps them around for convenience is probably happening on both devices.

What it is, however, is a short-coming of the software. I read in this thread that in Mavericks you can delete contacts by clicking on the small down arrow after you add the user to a chat. Unfortunately if that was ever true, it is no longer true on Yosemite. Apple is famous for deleting capabilities as time goes by, which frankly seems rather shortsighted to me. So I, too, and struggling with this issue.

But it's not a privacy issue. Apple does not sell your data. That's google's speciality and is one of the reasons I will use Apple's stuff even though it's increasingly inferior to the google/android platform (especially the cloud/AI aspects of the platform).

I was having same problem with OS10.10.5.

Solution that worked for me: deleting entry in iMessages on my iPhone, and almost immediately, incorrect entry had disappeared from my mac.

iMessage on the mac clearly needs an equivalent to Mail's 'Previous recipients' listing.

without an iOS-device you are really pranked! I was facing same problem in OS X 10.11.1 (El Captain) and could delete the unwanted entry only via my iPhone as described earlier in this thread. That luckily worked like charm 🙂 Apple did still not manage to allow same editing in OS X. Very unprofessional! Probably it would be an awesome idea if their support people would browse through threads like this from time to time to see what customers are complaining.

thats super annoying indeed. It actually keeps me from using iMessages the way its supposed to be used. I always have to switch to a text editor first to complete the address, then copy paste it into the iMessage window.

It worked well for me. i deleted everything in the ichat window and emptied trash ( was like 1600 items) then closed and re opened iMessage and they were gone. this will only work if you have deleted them from recents on every other device linked to your mac first. then you can do this step and it will work for you.

In Mail, Window menu, select Previous Recipients.

Find the ones you want to delete and remove them.

I'm trying to find the same concept but for iMessage.

Oops. I didn't read far enough.

I don't see that in Messages.

I don't know of anything else you can do on a Mac. On an iOS device, you can tap the i button next to a contact and select Remove from Recents. That may carry over to other clients.

Air Boss - tap the circled "i" to the right side when the offending name appears, you'll be presented an option, in red text, to delete from recents. That's it.

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Yeah, I tried this and it repopulated anyway.

That didn't do anything for me except place some text in my trash folder.

This is exactly what worked for me. I deleted it from the iPhone first and voila - it was gone from all my other devices include iMessage on my iMac and MacBook Air. Thanks.