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How to Remove Recent Contacts from Your iPhone’s Messages App

How to Remove Recent Contacts from Your iPhone’s Messages App

The iPhone, and iOS in general, is great at remembering things, from visited websites, to call history, to iCloud documents. It’s so good, in fact, that it can sometimes become frustrating.

Related: This tip deals with recent contacts in the iOS Messages app. Want to learn how to remove favorite and recent contacts from the iOS 8 app switcher? Check it out here.

Take, for example, my wife Helen’s recent change of her mobile number. For years, Helen had a mobile number with the area code of the first city in which we lived after getting married. Now that we’re in Pennsylvania, she wanted to switch to a new number with a local area code to make things easier for friends and colleagues.
A few months ago, we called up Verizon, picked out a new number, and updated our iCloud contact list with the new information. All set, right? Not if iOS Messages has anything to say about it!
Despite scrubbing her old number from our Contacts app, it still showed up every time I tried to add her as a recipient to a text message. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do, short of wiping and restoring my iPhone, to fix it. Thankfully, there’s a easy fix that’s hiding two taps away.
To remove recent contacts from your iPhone’s Messages app, first head to your Contacts app and make sure that the number or contact has been deleted. Next, create a new message and begin to type the name or number of the contact you wish to remove.
Remove Recent Contacts iPhone
When it appears in the list, tap the circled “i” button on the right to bring up the contact info window. Here, you’ll find a red button labeled Remove from Recents. As its name suggests, tap it to delete that unwanted number once and for all.
Once the information has been removed, you’ll be returned to the New Message window. This time, you’ll notice that the unwanted number is gone, and that only the correct information from your Contacts app is displayed.

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12 thoughts on “How to Remove Recent Contacts from Your iPhone’s Messages App”

Jay says:
I can’t seem to delete my recents using your Techniqes. Any other suggestions? I have a iPhone 7 Plus if that makes a difference
Nick says:
With the new iOS update I can’t figure out how to do this anymore. Has anyone figured it out?
Ken says:
Me either.
Bill says:
Agree. There’s a “>” sign. No “i”
contact says:
I am really grateful to the owner of this website who
has shared this wonderful post at here.
Andy N says:
In messages when I type the number to remov wit I don’t get an “I” next to it. So how do I remove it?
Talia Dadon says:
Can I remove all of them at once or I have to do this one by one?
Thanks!
Charlie Bruno says:
Some do not cone up with “Remove from Recents”. Thats the problem. How do you remove those?
CJ says:
I am having the same problem – there’s no “i” . Did anyone ever find out how to remove them?
Gerald Shannon Gibson says:
How can I prevent it from happening in the first place?
newerhere says:
Nice tip. Thx.
Uğur Doğan says:
When icloud contacts i cant see circled “i” button :(
Rebecca Dear says:
how do i delete all of them at once
Uğur Doğan says:
imposible
Lucy Treasure says:
how do you delete the number if it doesn’t have an ‘i’ next to it?
Uğur Doğan says:
try write number :D 0 to 9 :D
Christopher says:
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. Learn more: how to erase recent call on iPhone
Stygian Desolator says:
Do you have a way to remove all recents in one shot other than restoring as new?
Info Now says:
Good question. Any solution?
Lan says:
I want to know this as well :D

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Jim Tanous

May 15, 2014

676 Articles Published

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