How To Delete All Contacts From Gmail

Posted by & filed under Google, HowTo.

Update October 2010: These instructions are no longer valid. Take a look at voyageurs60’s comment.

If you’ve ever tried to delete more than 20 contacts in gmail, you might have noticed an error message informing you that you’re only allowed to delete 20 contacts at a time.

I don’t really think of Google as a company that puts abitrary limits on features. Who knows why they decided upon this limit.

Suppose you’ve accidentally quadrupled your contacts list in some sort of import mishap and you just want to start over. There’s a fairly simple — if somewhat non-intuitive — workaround for this. Click the “older version” link it the top navigation bar (http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1). This will allow you access to the old contacts list interface.
From there:
1) click “all contacts” tab
2) scroll down to the bottom, select “all” (no idea why this option is not at the top of the interface)
3) Delete!

  • http://www.mediamadrugada.no/ Chris

    It just says “The predefined friends, family, and coworkers groups cannot be deleted”…

  • http://www.mediamadrugada.no Chris

    It just says “The predefined friends, family, and coworkers groups cannot be deleted”…

  • Jamie

    I had the same problem. Just go up in your contact list and uncheck the entries for “friends”, “Families” and for ‘coworkers’. Then try to delete again. Worked for me. It is telling you that you can’t delete the friends, family, and coworkers groups because they are part of Gmail. I didn’t think they would show up in the contacts list, but they do.

  • Jamie

    I had the same problem. Just go up in your contact list and uncheck the entries for “friends”, “Families” and for ‘coworkers’. Then try to delete again. Worked for me. It is telling you that you can’t delete the friends, family, and coworkers groups because they are part of Gmail. I didn’t think they would show up in the contacts list, but they do.

  • http://www.pittsburghventures.com/ Alan Veeck

    Thanks so much for this piece of advice! I have been looking for a way to do this (for some reason Google imported a bunch of junk, and my Contacts list got sloppy), and you were spot on where others missed the mark. I am now trying to find a good program to automagically sync Google Contacts with Outlook — any ideas there? Thanks in advance -

  • http://www.pittsburghventures.com Alan Veeck

    Thanks so much for this piece of advice! I have been looking for a way to do this (for some reason Google imported a bunch of junk, and my Contacts list got sloppy), and you were spot on where others missed the mark. I am now trying to find a good program to automagically sync Google Contacts with Outlook — any ideas there? Thanks in advance -

  • http://ohryan.ca/ RyanN

    Sorry, I don’t know any way to import Google contacts into Outlook.
    Glad you found the post helpful.

  • http://ohryan.ca/ RyanN

    Sorry, I don’t know any way to import Google contacts into Outlook.
    Glad you found the post helpful.

  • Tony Anderson

    Thanks for this advice as well!! I had “invisible” contacts that “older version” showed.

    Now for answers to other questions. CompanionLink will sync Google and Outlook.

    How to import Outlook data into Google:
    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102220481033.aspx

  • Tony Anderson

    Thanks for this advice as well!! I had “invisible” contacts that “older version” showed.

    Now for answers to other questions. CompanionLink will sync Google and Outlook.

    How to import Outlook data into Google:
    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102220481033.aspx

  • Liam

    Thanks. You are awesome!!!

  • Voyageurs60

    2010–0915 — slight change I think… at bottom of contact list page there is a Gmail View with a number of options. I chose “older contact manager” — once this displays you have columns. At the top of the column with the contact names I selected “ALL” then to the right there is the “Delete All” button. The categories/groups still exist but this was not the problem — duplicates were… give it a try and good luck if you must take the drastic measure…

  • jason

    There IS NO “SELECT ALL” — THIS POST IS BOGUS.
    Probably existed once, now just ADDS TO FRUSTRATION

  • Anonymous
  • Remi

    It works but slightly different…
    Scroll down to the bottom of the page in your gmail account and
    click the “older contact manager” link (it’s in small fonts)
    Once it loads up your contacts just select “ALL” and click “Delete contacts” button on the right.
    That’s it! Enjoy!

    Remi
    http://remivladuceanu.con

  • Radumon

    How do I delete multiple contacts at one time???

  • mac

    when i have 2 email addresses that are valid and want to delete one. How do I do this?

  • Eugene Munyaneza

    Thanks, worked like magic. It actuary creates labels so you can delete all the unnecessary ones.

  • like it easy and smart

    if you go to gmail account, look at the very botton of the page and you will find slection says ” use old contact manager” . click on it. on the old contact manager select all contacts. all your contacts will be selected no matter what the numbers is. Then click delete. Then You are happy man with zero contacts. I have just deleted more then 13000 contacts

  • Wynmorgan

    For the life of me I could NOT find the “older contacts manager” link.  Found a way to get to it finally: go to your gmail account and log in, then use this url: http://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#cm1  This brought right to the “older contacts manager”.  Then, Select All > Delete.  Done.

  • Cglopp

    I can’t get this to work, can you give me the instructions for doing this now?  Thanks

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