Help Arg! Every person I've yahoo mailed in the last 20 years is now a contact

[Luke Drillbrain]

I have a Gmail account, but don't use it for anything other than hooking it to my Youtube account and my Android Moto G phone with Google Calendar & Contacts. All my e-mailing I do with my Yahoo account that I want separate from Gmail. I installed the Yahoo email app on my phone just to be able to check emails with my phone, since I'm not using Gmail. This Yahoo account, which I got back in 1996, automatically puts people I email into a contact list. Whatever. I don't pay much attention to that. The important people I put into Google Contacts, which I wanted to remain separate from Yahoo. So now all of a sudden I tap on Contacts in my phone and all those zillions of Yahoo contacts are there mixed in with the Goolge ones. Uhg! I pulled up Google Contacts on my computer to see if GC had pulled in all my Yahoo contacts. It hasn't. So this is going on just on my phone.

Help! This isn't what I wanted. There are now people I haven't been in touch with for over 15 years in my phone contacts. There are dead people in there. I guess I could go in the phone and painstakingly delete every contact I don't want, but will they just get pulled back in from Yahoo? Which software developer decided this was a great feature? Arg.

 

[Clementine_3]

Yahoo did it, they just updated the app and this is a new "feature". I hate Yahoo, just saying

I actually uninstalled it because of this, I don't want them having access to my Gmail contacts.

 

[chanchan05]

Yahoo doing this does not give them access to your Gmail contacts. Your contacts app simply shows you contacts from both Yahoo and Gmail databases.

To fix this, first you need to clear the Yahoo! App data. This would delete it. Then go offline and open the app or go offline after you enter your account and not let it sync. I don't have the app, but I'd imagine they'd have a setting to turn off contact sync. Turn that off.

If that fails, I suggest using a different email app with a function to prevent contact sync. It may vary from manufacturers, but some built in Email apps have this function.

 

[AZgl1500]

I suggest you trash the Yahoo app. I absolutely refuse to use branded apps for that reason.

I use google contacts for the phone, ( refuse to allow any phone number be stored in the phone )

and I use Aqua Mail as my phone email app, it faithfully follows my Web Yahoo email contacts only, not their telephone numbers..... which I never, ever, store in a Contact list.... I just don't allow Cross Pollination, you get too many undesired results.

 

[AZgl1500]

I once had a problem like this years back.
the only way I could fix it, was to delete the entire contacts list,

used my backup contacts list on my PC, and imported that back into the phone....
that was before I switched to google contacts.....

 

[Clementine_3]

Yahoo doing this does not give them access to your Gmail contacts...after you enter your account and not let it sync.

Except I had Yahoo set not to sync and it never did. After the update all my Gmail contacts showed in Yahoo. I had one Yahoo contact. One. It pulled every Gmail contact. I'm not taking about general contacts in the contact app, I'm taking about Yahoo.

So yeah. Uninstalled. My dislike of Yahoo escalated another notch.

 

[chanchan05]

Except I had Yahoo set not to sync and it never did. After the update all my Gmail contacts showed in Yahoo. I had one Yahoo contact. One. It pulled every Gmail contact. I'm not taking about general contacts in the contact app, I'm taking about Yahoo.

So yeah. Uninstalled. My dislike of Yahoo escalated another notch.

Wow. That's a new low for Yahoo. I admit I haven't seen the last update.

 

[KOLIO]

Can you not go into Settings > Accounts > Yahoo & de-select the contacts syncing for Yahoo & have that solve the problem?
And/or,go to Phone > Contacts & do the same?

Just curious,I quit Spamhoo a long time ago,due to similar shenanigans..........

 

[tube517]

Yahoo is still around?

 

[Clementine_3]

Can you not go into SETTINGS > ACCOUNTS > YAHOO & de-select the contacts syncing for Yahoo & have that solve the problem?

I had it set to NOT sync in the app (did check settings/accounts/yahoo too) and that was still selected after the update but was clearly ignored. It's possible that had I played with it a bit I could have figured out how to un-sync them but I got seriously ticked and just uninstalled it. I check the mobile site now instead, but I did like getting notifications. I only use it for a local birding club so it's not the end of the world, unless there is a bird sighting and I want to jump in the car and go see it. Now I won't know about it a timely fashion. Stupid Yahoo.

Oh, just to be clear, it's only the app that pulls the contacts in...it's not pulling them into the 'actual' Yahoo mail servers/account. But still and all, I don't want them there!

 

[KOLIO]

Yahoo is still around?

LOL,right..............
Warren Buffett is rumored to buy it,maybe if this comes to pass,they'll right the ship:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/b...lbert-unite-in-bid-to-acquire-yahoo.html?_r=0

 

[AZgl1500]

Yahoo has a lot of irritations about it,
but they are the only game in town for allowing you to have as many linked email addresses as you want.

I assign a unique email address to every vendor I deal with, if spam shows up on that address, I just delete the address and move on... no more spam.

looks like this:

FirstnameLastnameSecure-Vendor@yahoo.com

your first and last names are appended to 'Secure-' and then you create a special unique ID for the vendor, I try to just use intials if I can.... they give you a text box that accepts 150 characters to let you identify that ID

 

[Luke Drillbrain]

Thanks for your help. Sanity has been restored. I installed Aqua Mail, got it up and running, and then uninstalled the Yahoo mail app. After that, all the zillions of extra contacts were gone. Thanks to everyone for your help. Thanks to AZgl1500 for recommending Aqua Mail. Looks like a quality app.