Gmail recipient suggestions can come from contacts you saved deliberately and information saved automatically from interactions. Google Contacts and Other contacts are therefore different places to inspect when a name or address appears unexpectedly.
Recognize deliberately saved contacts
The main Contacts list contains entries you created, imported, or otherwise saved as contacts. These can include several email addresses, phone numbers, and labels. Check the account shown in Google Contacts before editing anything.
A person appearing in Gmail’s suggestions does not necessarily mean you created a complete contact card for them. Suggestions also use interaction signals, such as recent correspondence, rather than simply listing every contact alphabetically.
Inspect Other contacts on the web
Google saves some interaction-derived addresses in Other contacts when the relevant saving controls are enabled. On a computer, open Google Contacts and choose Other contacts from the left menu. Inspect an entry to edit or remove it.
The mobile Contacts experience does not expose Other contacts in the same way. Failing to find an address in the phone’s ordinary contact list does not prove Gmail has no saved suggestion for it.
Separate personal records from directory information
Work or school accounts can also expose organizational contact information, and some displayed details come from the person’s Google profile. A personal contact edit does not necessarily replace every directory or profile field.
Use Gmail’s Create contacts for auto-complete preference and the Google Account interaction-saving control to manage future saving. Use editing, selective removal, or Hide suggestion to address an existing unwanted suggestion. None of these actions recalls messages already sent or changes who can contact you. Before sending to a suggested person, inspect the full email address, especially if the same name appears in several sources. For an incorrect organization-managed entry, ask the directory administrator to correct the authoritative record.
Browse Gmail & Google Account help
References
Reviewed against the linked product guidance, standards, and identified vendor or public-authority guidance on October 29, 2026. Available options and screen labels can vary by account, device, region, and organization policy.