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Purge email recent recipients list - iCloud.com web

Hi-


When I send an email to anyone from iCloud.com web site, that address gets "stored" in the recent recipients list, then in turn it pops back up to auto-populate the "To: " field letting me auto-complete email addresses when typing a few characters. This is normal behaviour and it's fine.


The problem is that I'd like to review and delete some addresses from that list so they no longer come up in the auto-complete suggested list.


The reason I want to do this is in the following example:


1) I send an email to my "Fred" -> fred@some.thing gets stored


2) I send another email, but this time is to Fred and Dave -> fred@some.thing + dave@some.thing gets stored (together)


3) I want to send a third email to Fred and start typing f-r-e... and I get presented with two options:


a- fred@some.thing

b- fred@some.thing & dave@some.thing


Now, say I never email Dave any more. I want to get rid of "choice b", so when I type Fred I don't have to choose, but just accept the default choice.


I realize this might look a little trivial, but it gets very cumbersome when dealing with many combinations of Fred, Dave, John, Paul, etc., plus, my addressbook stored contacts, plus the "recents" list and then the groups in contacts.


I guess if I could purge the list + prevent it from "auto-saving" recents, so I only get presented with my stored contacts + groups will do. Is there such an option?


TIA


Rick.

Posted on Jul 17, 2014 8:25 AM

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Posted on Jul 17, 2014 11:18 AM

You can't remove a previous recipient on iCloud.com, but if you have a Mac that is signed into your iCloud account you can open Mail and go to Window>Previous Recipients and delete them there. Or, from an iOS device you can start addressing a message and when the previous recipient that you want to delete appears, tap the "i" to the right of it, then tap Remove From Recipients. These changes will sync to iCloud and be reflected on iCloud.com as well.

8 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jul 17, 2014 11:18 AM in response to RAM

You can't remove a previous recipient on iCloud.com, but if you have a Mac that is signed into your iCloud account you can open Mail and go to Window>Previous Recipients and delete them there. Or, from an iOS device you can start addressing a message and when the previous recipient that you want to delete appears, tap the "i" to the right of it, then tap Remove From Recipients. These changes will sync to iCloud and be reflected on iCloud.com as well.

Jul 7, 2015 5:58 AM in response to randers4

The problem is if you've got many combinations of addressee and cc's including a certain name. I have to go through several combinations before I find the person in isolation. These build up very quickly when you email lots and groups and cc's for business. You rarely email exactly the same people and should be able to disable if it's not appropriate for you, so it's bad design. It takes forever to delete them one by one in iOS. There should be delete all previous recipients as in OS X Mail. Plus disable storing previous recipient groups.

May 6, 2016 1:13 PM in response to randers4

This is no longer working and now icloud.com is bringing up recipients from years ago. I have deleted them so many times. I have even resulted in deleting every email received - sent - stored - trashed..... nothing works. I logged out of every device I own and wiped them clean - icloud.com still comes up with these bogus "previous recipients". It gets rid of them from the apple devise i am using but will not go away from the icloud.com. I have even gone so far as to manually delete them one by one aa, ab, ac, ad... What a pain. Apple may not be able to get a virus - but what protects us from the hacking and hijacking from Apple? Does anyone have a work-a-round?

Purge email recent recipients list - iCloud.com web

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