Help Question About Contacts...

[Native NYer]

I noticed that every time I get an email to my gmail account, somehow a contact is created for it. How do I stop this? My contacts list is bloated to over 450 contacts.

Also, is there a way I can create a 'private Android Account' in Accounts? Each of my contacts has my gmail address listed at the top of it and I want to get rid of that. I run my own personal mail server with my own domain. Is it possible I can use that instead? Call me paranoid but I don't want google to have access to my contacts list.

 

[Crashdamage]

Probably in Settings of your email client there is an option to automatically add unknown addresses. Turn it off.

In Settings > Accounts you can select your Google account(s) and turn off Contacts sync to keep contacts info from being sent to Google. I recommend you leave sync on.

In most email clients you can add your private domain as you would any other account.

 

[Native NYer]

I do have sync turned off but it still adds the email addresses of every email I get to my gmail. I use K-9 Mail for my personal and gmail account and there is no setting in there to turn off automatically add email addresses. It doesn't happen with my personal email accounts so I suspect it isn't K-9 Mail that is the culprit.

Why do you recommend leaving sync on? There is no benefit to doing this at all other than google having my contacts list.

When I said I want to add an account, I mean add an account in Settings>Accounts. I know how to configure an email account.

 

[Crashdamage]

Addresses have never been automatically added on any device I've ever had, all Nexus stuff now. There's no setting for it in the stock 5.0 Gmail app. The option is there in AquaMail, my client of choice, and turned off. I don't know what phone you're using, but somewhere, in the included email client maybe, or contacts app, there must be an option to auto-add addresses that's on.

There's plenty of benefits to syncing contacts to Google. I sync contacts to keep them synced across several devices and computers. Really saves a lot of work. More importantly, for constant automatic backup and easy restoration.

I couldn't care less if my contacts are on Google servers. Every time you send an email, the info is out there, monitored by 3-letter government agencies and who knows who else anyway. And I'm supposed to be worried about Google?

As for the account question, ok I see what you mean now. I don't know how you can use your private domain as an account the same way as Google, Dropbox or whatever. Good question.

To get your contacts out of a Google account, I think you could export them as a .vcf, turn sync off on the phone, delete contacts on the phone and import the .vcf as phone-only contacts. Once that's done, delete the Google contacts online. At least I think that will work.

But I wouldn't do it...

 

[Native NYer]

I am not hallucinating. I have had three Android phones and all of them did this, one LG and two Samsung Galaxys. It is not in my email client, as I said before because it only happens with the gmail account, not my other two personal accounts. Why do you insist I'm imagining this? I know how to figure this out somewhat. I worked in IT long ago. It has to be gmail or google. There is no other logical reason.

There are no benefits to syncing my contacts as I see it. It is not hard to export and import contact data. In fact, it's easy peasy.... if you know what you're doing. Granted, it might take a few more steps than syncing but still, I can do it from one device to another in less than three minutes.... and how many times must I export and import? Only when I upgrade to another phone. Since I only have ONE phone and one tablet, I need only one current copy of my contacts list, which I backup weekly.

Sync is and always was turned off. When I went to my first Android, I came from a Treo and imported my contacts list. I have been importing contacts lists to other devices and programs for over 15 years. So, I also know how to do that... in my sleep. And still, you have not answered my question. Instead, you have given me information that has already been done or uless information. And I will repeat myself a third time, there are NO CONTACTS ONLINE. I do NOT share my information with anyone, if I can help it. All I want to do is stop my phone from creating contacts when I get emails to my gmail address. That's it.

 

[Crashdamage]

I'm not trying to be difficult or accusing you of anything. And I understand you perfectly.

I just said I've never, covering many phones and Android since v1.0, had addresses automatically added. On my Nexus devices running pure Android there is no setting for it that I can find so apparently it's not part of Gmail by default. So something somewhere must have enabled that.

I simply think you blaming Google for this might be misplaced. So, I can't help you further with this. The phone is in your hands. You'll have to find what's on the phone that's doing it yourself.

I gave good reasons for syncing contacts. You have 2 devices to keep contacts on and it's easy to deal with manually. I have several devices plus PCs and they have several contact lists with hundreds of contacts to keep straight and it's a lot of work to do it manually. We have different needs. I don't mind syncing to Google, you do. We'll just have to agree to disagree.