Deleting old iMessage people

[Steve Hope]

Hi guys, Steve here with a MacBook Air Ventura 13.3. I seem to have some old non-existent contacts brought in from my old Mac book Pro and I really do not know how to delete them from messages. I accidentally sent my wife something to her old contact number and email and got the red exclamation mark showing not sent. I tried a few ways but failed; I would love to know a good way to delete old, expired contacts from messages. Thank you.

 

[Howard Brazee]

I've had that happen with Apple's Mail. It keeps track of previous recipients. From within Apple Mail, selecting Window/Previous Recipients, I have an editable list of addresses that have gotten email from me. I don't see anything similar for the messages app.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

To further Howard's response, you could simply delete the failed messages and then make sure those entries aren't listed in the Contacts application. Contacts is where Messages gets its information.

C

 

[Steve Hope]

I only have one contact for my wife in Contacts but when I go to 'new message" it constantly pulls up 2 old numbers for her that I cannot delete from messages, nor are they in "contacts" . Would like to delete from messages so they are not an option to accidentally use, thanks.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Maybe the previous contacts list in Mail is affecting it? Are those entires listed there?

C

 

[Steve Hope]

There has to be some "rogue" list somewhere because I deleted all my wife's previous contact info from
"contacts" on both my Macs and my phone. When I search those lists only the 1 correct phone number and 1 correct email show up.
However, if I go to "new message" or "new email" on any of my 3 devices and type her name I get all the old email addresses and phone numbers showing as choices so they will not go away permanently.
I went thru previous recipients and deleted what I could ( its been a couple of years since I texted her at work and those do not show up).

 

[jnlindsay]

There has to be some "rogue" list somewhere because I deleted all my wife's previous contact info from
"contacts" on both my Macs and my phone. When I search those lists only the 1 correct phone number and 1 correct email show up.
However, if I go to "new message" or "new email" on any of my 3 devices and type her name I get all the old email addresses and phone numbers showing as choices so they will not go away permanently.
I went thru previous recipients and deleted what I could ( its been a couple of years since I texted her at work and those do not show up).

I have the same problem, although it is with my son and not with my wife. Many years ago he had a different email address than he has now and I had a contact at that time that simply had his 3 letter initials and his old email address. That was a shortcut for me, so when I wanted to email him I just entered his 3 letter initials. Worked fine at the time. Now probably 3 lap tops since, he no longer uses that email address, and I have removed that email address from previous recipients so when I type his initials, I do not get his old email address. But when composing a text message, when I type his initials, I get both his old email address (in green) and his current phone number (in blue). SO I have to check each time, our I end up sending it to an old address (its an email address in the format of .Mac.com. Since he still has a Mac, then this is still a valid email address, it's just one he doesn't check or use.

I want to remove the link that connects his initials with his OLD email address. This link does NOT appear when I use my iPhone, only when I use this laptop. So it must exist somewhere in this laptop. I would like to find it and remove it but don't know where it "lives"