Help Deleting Mystery Contacts

[Sarafims11312]

I'm not tech illiterate, I can usually find out how to delete things on my own, but I have been messing with my phone for 2 hours and I have no idea how to delete this...

Here is my problem: I went to go put certain contacts in the "family" group, and when I pressed the plus sign, suddenly, a ton of unknown email addresses, names I haven't seen in forever and long deleted and weird crap showed up. When I went to look at my contact book, they weren't there. They only show up when I try to add someone to a group.

How do I go about deleting those invisible contacts?

Thank you,

 

[jj14x]

Where do you store your contacts? (Gmail account? Outlook.com? other?) And what app are you using to review/update these contacts?

 

[Sarafims11312]

I just store my contacts in the regular, orange contacts app. I think my phone has access to my google account, but even when I deleted contacts on my google account, they sill show up, even after I synced everything up.

 

[jj14x]

I don't have access to a S5 at the moment, but could you check your contacts app's settings to see which contacts are being displayed? The Contacts app can access multiple accounts, and will display contacts from all selected accounts. So, the starting point would be to find out where those contacts are being displayed from, and then, figure out what's happening there.

 

[Sarafims11312]

It says cloud, Facebook and Google when I go into settings and look under Accounts. Under contacts to display, it has phone Facebook and Google.

If they are displaying from those accounts, how do I go about deleting them from those accounts?

 

[AZgl1500]

I just store my contacts in the regular, orange contacts app. I think my phone has access to my google account, but even when I deleted contacts on my google account, they sill show up, even after I synced everything up.

When I 1st got my S5 it came up with a bunch of stuff, I went to Google and deleted that entire contact account. Then made darn sure that Sync is turned off. It also tried to install ALL of my Yahoo email accounts, so I deleted that account off the phone. the only thing I let see my phone is Play Store

I no longer allow my phone to see any other account period. I use a separate email app for Yahoo.
I only store contacts on the "Phone", never, ever, allow it to see google.

Once you do that, you will be rid of all that other crap that is invading your phone's contact group list.

 

[Sarafims11312]

When I 1st got my S5 it came up with a bunch of stuff, I went to Google and deleted that entire contact account. Then made darn sure that Sync is turned off. It also tried to install ALL of my Yahoo email accounts, so I deleted that account off the phone. the only thing I let see my phone is Play Store

I no longer allow my phone to see any other account period. I use a separate email app for Yahoo.
I only store contacts on the "Phone", never, ever, allow it to see google.

Once you do that, you will be rid of all that other crap that is invading your phone's contact group list.

Thank you! How do I go about deleting the accounts?

 

[AZgl1500]

Thank you! How do I go about deleting the accounts?

Hit the Star Wheel at the bottom of the screen in the Command Bar.
That is Applications Manager.
Scroll down the screen to ACCOUNTS

open that up and delete everything including Google.

Now your phone is plain vanilla and unencumbered by the fluff from other places.
Go into your Main Contacts app and edit it so it is "like you want it".

Restart the phone, then bring up Play Store, it will ask you for your email account.
Give it the email address but refuse everything else.

I refuse to allow it to keep my Password, and I will NOT use their Wallet for payments.
I do all of that thru PayPal so that I can control what happens, and if I don't like it, I can make a complaint and get the situation refunded/fixed.

Now, you can get updates from Play Store if you want them, (I don't).

I suggest that you use a PC to go to the Google Account page and edit all of the preferences there to stop it from updating, syncing to your phone, giving out your personal information, etc....

My Google Profile contains my email address and nothing else.
No updates, no nada, Zilch, Nothing.... I will not allow Google to see my phone beyond downloading apps when I want them.

 

[Sarafims11312]

My problem I have is when I get to the accounts page, it won't let me delete anything. I go to the setting wheel, hit accounts and it pops up the 4 that are giving me trouble. I can add, but it won't give me the option to delete.

 

[AZgl1500]

Hmmm, you are correct, but a search of the internet shows a few methods,
here is one.

this link seems to tell us that we must be rooted to do it w/o a FDR.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2134320


I brought up ES File Manager and root ( the \ key ) will show us the DATA folder, but Android will not let us view the contents of that folder so that we can delete "accounts.db"

so, it seems that you need to backup all of your phone's data/pix with as many methods as you have on tap.
I would use Kies 3.0 to save the overall phone system, WiFi passwords, etc...

then do a FDR and rebuild the phone from scratch and do not add any accounts until you have the contacts list cleaned up.

 

[EarlyMon]

You don't have contact storage whose data you can clear from the app manager on this phone?