Last Updated on March 29, 2026
Gmail is one of the largest free email services in use today. It’s provided by Google and is one of their many free Google Apps that you can use such as Docs, Drive and Photos. You can access Gmail from any device with an internet connection and web browser.
Just like many other email apps, Gmail will suggest email addresses for you as you type in the To box. These addresses will be taken from your contacts and history, and it gives you an easy way to select an email address by clicking on it from the suggestions.
One thing you might notice is that there are email addresses in the suggestions that you don’t recognize or do not want to even be there at all. You may also find that these extra email addresses make it harder to find the person you are looking for. In this article, we will be showing you how to delete autocomplete email addresses in Gmail.
As you can see in the image below, as we type the letter E, Gmail suggests email addresses that match what we are typing. Then as we type more characters, the list of suggested addresses will shrink to match what we are typing. Let’s say we do not want EaseUS Sales Department to show up in our suggested autocomplete email addresses since we don’t plan on ever contacting them again
Locating the Hidden Contact Data
1. Identify the Non-Contact Address
If we click on the EaseUS Sales Department contact, we can get some basic information about it. Notice that there is absolutely no delete option available on this screen. Since there is a Save Contact button, that tells us that this email address is not even in our active contacts. You would naturally think it wouldn’t show up at all in the autocomplete suggestions.
2. Understand the Frustration
Even if we were to click on the edit pencil icon, there is still no option to delete the address. Google forces these cached addresses into your autocomplete menu based on your previous outgoing email history. You cannot delete them directly from the Gmail interface.
3. Open the Google Contacts App
To delete this autocomplete email address entry, we will need to go to the dedicated Google Contacts webpage. This can be accessed by clicking on the waffle icon at the upper right corner next to your profile picture. Then click on the blue Contacts icon to launch the application in a new tab.
Removing the Cached Email Address
1. Navigate to Other Contacts
Since this email address is not a regular contact that we manually added, it will not appear in the main list. We will need to go to the Other contacts section on the left side menu and find it there. This hidden folder contains every single email address you have ever replied to.
2. Delete the Contact Record
Scroll through the list or use the search bar to locate the specific email address you want to remove. Then we can hover our mouse over the contact and click on the three vertical dots for More actions. Click on Delete from the drop down menu.
3. Confirm the Deletion
You will then be notified that the contact will be permanently deleted from your account after 30 days. It will sit in your trash folder until then just in case you change your mind. You can then click on the blue Delete button to finish removing the email address from your account.
4. Verify the Autocomplete Fix
Now when we go back to Gmail and compose a new message and type the letter E, the menu will look different. The EaseUS Sales Department address no longer shows up in the autocomplete suggestions. The cached data has been successfully cleared.
5. Managing Regular Contacts
If you want to remove autocomplete suggestions for addresses that are in your regular contacts, the process is slightly different. You will need to delete the actual contact itself from your main address book. This might not be what you want to do unless of course you no longer have a need for that particular contact.
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