# Gmail won't suggest or even show my contacts when choosing recipients **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 23, 2024, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117 "2024-10-23T20:21:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/1 "2024-10-23T20:21:22Z")
I’ve verified that the email and label are in my Google contacts, but typing out “John Doe” doesn’t suggest anything, even though I just looked at that name inn my contacts. I’m stumped, and what I found online wasn’t helpful. Does anyone have a direction to point? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/2 "2024-10-23T20:26:26Z")
Just for specificity, are you using the GMail web mail UI, the mobile app, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/3 "2024-10-23T20:40:52Z")
Does refreshing or logging out & back into Gmail help at all? Contact changes don’t show up immediately in the Gmail app, but in my experience it usually works again after a refresh. Try a hard refresh (cmd/ctrl-shift-R) if your browser supports that. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/4 "2024-10-24T04:01:55Z")
I’m using the web page. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/5 "2024-10-24T04:02:36Z")
This has been happening for months. The whole computer has been rebooted in that time. Some of these contacts I’m talking about were created 2 months ago. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/6 "2024-10-24T04:13:25Z")
Go into Settings (gear up top-right), See All Settings. What does it say next to: > Create contacts for auto-complete: ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/7 "2024-10-24T06:58:56Z")
Same thing sprang up out of nowhere on my laptop months ago. Doesn’t happen on my desktop, Running it in a Chrome browser window on both. And it’s not new contacts. It is all my contacts. It simply acts as though I have no contact list. But I can select contacts and they are all there. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/8 "2024-10-24T13:55:58Z")
I have the same thing happen with my Yahoo email account. The person I’m emailing has been entered into my contacts weeks ago, but when I start typing in the name nothing comes up. It only works if it’s someone I’ve emailed before. Once I’ve emailed them, then the name shows up as I begin to type it. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-wont-suggest-or-even-show-my-contacts-when-choosing-recipients/1009117/9 "2024-10-25T13:09:33Z")
This value is chosen: When I send a message to a new person, add them to Other Contacts so that I can auto-complete to them next time The other issue is that I created all these contacts myself by importing them as a .csv file, so that value shouldn’t matter in this case.