12

I have always been under the impression that the order of email addresses for a contact is the order in which their autocomplete suggestions will pop up. So if I have a contact with multiple email address and type their name into the To: field, the order of the email address listed in the auto complete pop up will be the order in their contact info, and in particular by hitting tab it will auto fill the first email address of the contact info.

Recently, I've noticed that this is not the case sometimes. In particular I have two contacts that recently changed their main email address and Gmail does not want to update the autocomplete popup with the order I expect. Whether this is because it is no recognizing that the "first" email address in the contact info has changed or because perhaps the auto complete order is based on something else (such as the email address with the most volume associated with it), I do not know.

Does anyone know how to have this behave the way I'd like?

Update

An answer mentioned removing the offending email address that's been previously the most emailed address, saving, then readding, and saving the contact again. This seems to work temporarily, but reverts within 6-8 hours.

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
11

Gmail will first suggest the addresses you send mail to most often.

If there is an email address you don't want at the top of the autocomplete popup, remove that email address from the contact. Make sure the changes save, then add the email address back to the contact. This should be sufficient to reset the priority for that email address.

Improve this answer
5
  • I don't doubt what you are saying given experience, but do you have any documentation/source on the order favoring an address used more often?
    – mindless.panda
    Dec 12, 2011 at 19:27
  • 1
    @mindless.panda I edited my answer to include a documented source.
    – William Jackson
    Dec 12, 2011 at 19:46
  • Thank you. Removing the "offending" address (i.e. the previously most emailed address), saving the contact, then adding the old email address back to the contact works perfectly, now autocomplete defaults to the address first listed.
    – mindless.panda
    Dec 12, 2011 at 21:05
  • 1
    Unfortunately, this seems to revert within 24 hours and the old email is once again the first suggestion.
    – mindless.panda
    Dec 13, 2011 at 13:14
  • 1
    I tried it, it doesn't work if the "offending" address is in the @gmail.com domain. Apparently Google favorizes their own services :(
    – Honza Zidek
    Jan 14, 2020 at 9:49

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.