Deleted contacts reappear when sharing links

[potatochipsyum]

Okay I guess I'm just trying this again. My old thread got pushed far away by the spam bot posts, and I guess it was just bad timing and my thread was unlucky. so I assume that's why so few people replied because so few people were able to see the post anymore. This severely limited the visibility of the thread and I didn't get any solution. But thank you to the people who did try to help me. For now I just deleted my old thread and I'm trying again here now since I'm hoping for a solution.

The problem is everyone has their contacts list and everybody deletes old contacts, you deleted and you expect it to just be deleted. End of story, right? Nope. For some unknown reason when I share a link, let's say for example from the YouTube app to the Google messaging app, my contacts list appears, but instead of it being my current contacts list, it's every contact that I have ever had and deleted mixed in with the rest of my contacts. As you might assume this is very inconvenient because you would have to scroll a lot more to get through a longer list of contacts that are already deleted, it just makes the contacts list a lot longer. These deleted contacts do not appear when looking normally at any Samsung or Google account data, or in the Google or Samsung contact apps, or in any folder or category or setting of any of these apps.

I followed the advice I was given, and I cleared the cache of every messaging and contacts app as well as checked every folder and every category and every setting in every contacts app, and cleared the cache of my entire phone, the screen with the glowing yellow options that requires a phone restart.

I have also deleted all of my Google and Samsung backups as well as any backed up contacts files in my phone, so there should not be any contacts saved to any cloud or any server or to my phone itself other than the ones that are current and up-to-date, my normal contacts that appear when I look at the Samsung or Google contacts apps.

I have searched and scoured every possible place in any and all accounts and all over my phone and I cannot figure out how these deleted contacts are able to appear only when I'm sharing the link of a video from the YouTube app to the Google messaging app, but I think it does happen when just sharing a link in general that requires the contacts list to appear if I'm not mistaken.

I don't know how it's possible for contacts that were deleted a long time ago to still appear because it suggests that either samsung, or google, or an app, or my phone itself, or some kind of cloud or faulty backup are somehow storing these deleted contacts and bringing them up again. I have left Samsung support feedback, and I have left Google feedback, and I just can't seem to get any solution yet. I don't know what could be causing this, but it is driving me crazy because it's just such a weird mystery. I can't even begin to express my frustration with this.😧

Please if anybody has any ideas or Solutions or suggestions, please help me! This issue has been a thorn in my side for so long now. Thanks and I hope you have a good night.

[kimberleigh]

Try this

[potatochipsyum]

I appreciate it but every folder that I found was empty and did not contain any of the unusual already deleted contacts, and also turning sync off did not seem to make the problem go away. I even tried deleting all of my Samsung contact backups and Google contact backups and even deleted the contacts backup file on my phone and disabled all syncing, but somehow the deleted phone numbers still appear in the select recipients list of contacts that appear when sharing a link. It's really a mystery.☹️

[realaud]

Hi. Me again. I've been thinking about this. Last time you didn't mention it was happening with with texts, just with sharing, so I just decided to check what comes up when I start a new chat. I do have some deleted contacts in the list. What I think is happening is your Samsung account keeps a record of anyone you ever interacted with from your contacts, whether deleted or not. The only deleted contacts that show up are the ones I ever had text interactions with, even though those chats (or shares) are long deleted. Further, I think it has more to do with the Samsung account than the phone or Google messages, as I can confirm no one shows up who I texted on other brand devices, even though I have archived chats with them. I have always used Google messages, since my first smart phone, so if it had to do with Google, all those would show in the list when creating a chat.

I don't have hundreds of contacts, and have deleted very few, so it's easy for me to spot the ones who should be gone (or the one who should be there if it was a Google issue). So, I still haven't found a way to remove that info or where it resides, but feel closer to an explanation.

Maybe it's in the Sameung pass data, even if you don't use Samsung pass. Maybe the way is to delete the data in Samsung pass.

[potatochipsyum]

Deleting Samsung pass data still did not work. But I appreciate the suggestion 🙂

[Robertskin · Accepted solution]

So I think I found the solution. It worked for me. I use a samsung S22 plus and I had the same issue and it really bothered me.
What I did was going to settings>apps>Messages (the app), then I cleared cache, data, and force stopped the app.

Hope this helps!

[potatochipsyum]

I was really scared that this would delete my phone numbers or text messages, but I decided to just give it a try and for stop the app and clear the cache and deleted the data, this was on the Google text messaging app btw, but it basically asked me to sign back in to my Google account, after which I was relieved to see at least in my own personal case, don't know if it would be the same for anyone else so be careful don't assume it would be the same, I'm not a professional! All I'm saying is that in my specific case my experience was that after signing back into Google on the Google text messaging app that my texts were not deleted which was a huge relief, and my Google contacts app and Samsung contacts app still contain all of my contacts and phone numbers Etc just fine as they should like normal. I'm also so happy to finally say that this actually worked. I tried to create a new message and it actually doesn't show any contacts at all, and I tried to share a YouTube link, none of the contacts showed up. It's like it got wiped completely clean. It's amazing. In order to bring up my contacts list, it now requires me to start typing a name, and I tested it and now even when I go to type in a name of a long since deleted contact, the outdated contact does not in any way appear in this list. All of the outdated contacts that were previously deleted now seem to be permanently deleted for good as it should have been the first time I deleted them, this is such a huge relief, thank you to everybody for helping and all the suggestions and advice.🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

[realaud]

Glad you got it solved.  As for me, since I didn't even know it was happening, and as stated before I only had a couple of "dead" contacts, it is not irking me at this point.  I will save the solution for when it does.  I actually think it's good to clean out certain apps' data on occasion.  I know the worst that will happen is you will have to log in again and re-do certain customizations.  Maybe I never noticed it because when I start a new chat, I generally just start typing the name, not going down the contacts list.

[realaud]

So, I suspected clearing the data would solve a different problem for me, and it did. However, now some notification categories are missing. Has that happened to you?

[potatochipsyum]

Notification categories? Can you be more specific? You mean in the Google text messaging app? If so, where in the app do you mean?

[realaud]

Yes, the notification categories in the messaging app. There used to be about 10 categories, now there's four. I didnt need or want norifications for everything the app spits out. I think one of the categorires might return, should I get a notification fron that category, though.

Did the realease of the fead names carry over into the share feature? I can't imagine what one thing eould have to do with the other, unless you were attempting to share via messages.