How to Delete Names From Address Book

Every now and again you may find that you need to clean out your email address book, as it becomes cluttered with entries from people you no longer correspond with. The process is fairly simple, regardless of whether you want to delete several specific names or the entire address book. Most email programs will have very similar instructions for deleting address book names. The only major differences will occur between software-based email clients, such as Outlook or Thunderbird, and web-based email clients, such as Yahoo or Gmail.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Software-based Email Client

1. Click "Tools" at the top of the window. Scroll down and select "Address Book." Click the specific address book you need to access at the left side of the screen if you have more than one address book saved.

2. Click the "Name" tab to arrange the list of address book names alphabetically. Scroll through the list and find the specific entry you want to delete.

3. Right-click the name and select "Delete." Right-click the name of the address book at the left side of the screen and choose "Delete" if you want to remove all of the entries.

Web-based Email Client

4. Navigate your web browser to your web based email client and log in. Click "Contacts" or the equivalent option for your specific email client.

5. Click "View All Contacts" and then select "All Contacts." Look through the list of saved contacts and find the specific name you want to delete.

6. Click the contact's name and then click "Delete." Click "Delete" again when the website creates a pop-up prompt asking if you want to continue.

7. Click "View All Contacts" and then choose "Deleted Contacts." Click the name of the address book contact you previously deleted.

8. Click "Delete Permanently" and then click "Delete Permanently" again when a pop-up window appears.

Tips & Warnings

• The specific options you click to remove names from your address book can vary, depending on which email client you use. Open the program's help files or access the website's support page if you are having trouble deleting names from your address book.
• Be sure you no longer need the address book entry before deleting it, because in most cases deleted names cannot be retrieved later.

References

• Adding and removing address books in outlook
• Mozilla Thunderbird support page