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Question

Contacts, but No Contacts??

Apr 26, 2017 8:15AM PDT

So I factory reset my Galaxy S3... again.

What I want to know is how to get rid of contacts that are persistently staying on my S3 without showing up in the contacts app itself.

What I mean is that I deleted my contacts, so for all options of displaying contacts there are no contacts. However, I go to the keypad and type a number... let's use 2 as an example. 9 contacts show up. All contacts I no longer want.

Without rooting the phone, what can I do about this?
(Samsung phone call says do a hard factory reset using the 3 buttons)

Discussion is locked

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Answer
In Android we have APPS.
Apr 26, 2017 8:35AM PDT

You cleared what the Contacts know but that KEYPAD is the "Phone" app. I do not have a Samsung to tell you exactly what the app name is but here it's always been "Phone."

If you wish, head to settings, then applications (on my phone that's "Settings" and then "Apps") and find the Phone app. Here I had to use the All tab in Apps to find the Phone app. There are clear Cache and Data but this varies so clear the data and cache for the Phone app, reboot and test.

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Android phone
Apr 26, 2017 7:16PM PDT

Android general setup. Samsung remote did that and it still shows up. Hence why I'm posting here.

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As I'm not able to try this on your phone.
Apr 27, 2017 10:30AM PDT

You now have a bone to pick with Samsung. Make it clear you want a fix or refund.

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Okay
Apr 27, 2017 1:13PM PDT

It's an old S3 that is out of warranty. Mom's old phone. I think I managed to get rid of them through TrueCaller. However, now that I have no contacts anywhere... my partner calling shows up as Gamersmith, which is part of one of his emails. That is weird.

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Sounds like, may or may not be
Apr 27, 2017 1:36PM PDT

A caller ID thing.

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Caller Id?
Apr 27, 2017 4:07PM PDT

From what? It's just his number everywhere I look.

Can I fix that?

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Android is like Windows.
Apr 27, 2017 5:02PM PDT

It can store things, cache things but where?

If you can't find it, factory reset the phone and DO NOT CONNECT IT TO YOUR Google or any other account. Otherwise it will restore from backups. Tell me if you knew that.

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I knew that
Apr 28, 2017 6:31AM PDT

However, I told it now to restore this time.
I still had contacts in my contacts app, which I deleted.
But that messed up everything else that I had that auto connected like mycontacts.
By messed up I mean that I use the mycontacts app as a backup for contacts for both android and ios.
When I deleted all contacts in the contacts app, cleared the phone cache, and deleted the numbers that were showing up in the dialer from truecaller... it sent the contacts in mycontacts to the mycontacts trash, emptying my contacts on my phone and my ipod.
Not sure how though.

Now that I seem to have fixed things for now, my contacts are restored. I did put them into google as an extra backup. Sadly I could not just import them from mycontacts or apple contacts, cause google lies. Says:

"We support importing CSV files from Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Eudora and some other apps. We also support importing vCard from apps like Apple Address Book."

but not so much. MyContacts isn't mentioned, but I tried importing the vCard from the Apple Contacts on the icloud website. That would be the same thing wouldn't it? (Not sure though)

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The moment you let the phone connect to your account.
Apr 28, 2017 8:45AM PDT

That's going to add information but where? (I can't know this.)

The only way to stop it is to not connect to your gmail or other accounts. Then it can't know.