Gmail strangely switching out Gmail Contact information to Google+ information

Question

My boss has a business email address, say [email protected], and I have him listed in Gmail contacts under his name, say "John Doe." Now, apparently his wife has a Google+ account under the name "Mary Jane" where she used his work email address, [email protected], to register. So what does Gmail do If I want to compose an email to my boss? If I

• try to type in "John Doe" into the to line, it does absolutely nothing; Gmail does not recognise this contact
• try to type in John Doe's email address into the to line, it autocompletes as Mary Jane < [email protected] >.

You might say, well that is his fault for sharing a Google+ account with is wife using his business email address, he should just live with getting emails addressed to "Marry Jane." If I were just sending emails to him this would be fine, but often I send emails to several people where he is CCed or where others are CCed and it's very strange for those other people to see "Mary Jane" in the to line. Note this problem existed prior to this whole Google+ controversy. Is there a solution to this problem that doesn't involve me telling my boss or boss's wife to do something?

Answer 1

In the contact for John Doe, you need to add a nickname John Doe. Then you will be able to type John Doe in the To field, and the contact will show as John Doe instead of Mary Jane.

In other words, the names seem to take the following precedence:

1. Nickname
2. Google+ name
3. Contact name

Stupid, I know, but at least it works.

Answer 2

If the contact's email is a Gmail address, you can append a + to the email address in your contact list (so [email protected] if the address is [email protected]). This will still reach the same mailbox, but will not be associated with the G+ account.

I tried the nickname trick, but that didn't work for me. Gmail still thought the G+ name is more accurate than anything that I'd written in my contacts list. What did work, however, was creating a contact with a + appended to the email address. (Info on why the plus sign works) This gave me a warning along the lines of: "Are you sure? This contact will not be associated with a public G+ account with a similar email." which of course was exactly what I wanted.

Answer 3

I am not sure what you are asking for but you can always edit the name and email address before sending. I also suspect your "John Doe" is really the same as "John Joe" (typo?) in the top.

I would: 1. Confirm you have the correct name and e-mail address in your contacts list. Autofill pulls up matching names.

1. Edit the name by clicking (or double click) on it if it shows "Mary Jane". You should be able to edit it as "John Doe " (without the quotes)

2. GMail still lets you type in the full name and address so you do not have to select the suggested options it brings up. Enter the Firstname, Lastname, space, less than sign, email address, greater than sign.

Let us know how this resolves.