Facebook Lets Users Remove Imported Contact Information
Most people use Facebook to connect with friends, including long-lost ones, and the company’s contact importing tool has been a key way to help them do so. Users can import address books from their phones, or email and instant message services. Beyond having the option to invite these friends to Facebook, directly, the company also puts this information into its “Phonebook” and uses it to provide more relevant friend suggestions to users and their Facebook friends.
But sometimes users find particular friend suggestions to be a bit odd. Maybe they see a suggestion for someone they don’t know — or know but don’t want to be friends with.
If you’re a Facebook user seeing unwanted Phonebook contacts or friend suggestions, one option that Facebook has provided for awhile (albeit a bit obscurely) is for you to delete your imported contacts.
But first, be sure to note the consequences. If you use Phonebook to make calls to Facebook friends from a mobile device, removing imported contacts may remove some friends’ phone numbers if you imported contacts from your phone. If you’ve been liking the friend suggestions tool, well, you’re about to make it less relevant to you. That’s not all. Facebook uses your imported contacts to try to make more relevant suggestions to your existing Facebook friends, so deleting your imports may make the feature less valuable for them, too.
All that said, here’s what to do: Go to this page, called “Remove Imported Contacts” and click on the “Remove” button. In order to get all the imported contacts out of your Facebook mobile app, though, you’ll also need to delete that data directly from the device.
June 30th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Yeah! More power to the people!
July 1st, 2010 at 4:31 am
It’s good that now we can remove imported contacts. I really don’t know about this. Thanks for the update.
July 4th, 2010 at 8:02 am
[...] Facebook Lets Users Remove Imported Contact Information [...]
July 13th, 2010 at 11:41 am
A pitty that the function isn´t working for me. Deleted my private AdressBook on my Mac, deleted Contacts in FB iPhone App and deletet them via FB Web. Still there.. :/
July 14th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
emzo is correct. The link to remove the contacts doesn’t work. I checked the sync button on my iPhone and it is turned “off.” Yet FB still imported all my contacts and phone numbers off my iPhone. I want to delete the PhoneBook—but it won’t go away. I deleted the FB app off my iPhone. PhoneBook contacts are still on FB. I’ve “deleted” them at least a dozen times. Different browsers. Different computers with different OS systems. Cleared caches. Restarted computers. PhoneBook contacts are STILL there! Not good, FB!!
July 16th, 2010 at 4:45 am
This is Fuckbooks latest Scam …. it is just designed to make you feel stupid
July 19th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I am trying to remove Imported Contact Information but I can’t.
What’s wrong??
Please help me remove Imported Contact Information.
Thanks.
July 20th, 2010 at 12:42 am
This needs to be elevated to the national news media CNN, Headline News etc. This is the only way that FB will address the removal link not working and you not even being able to delete the list on FB it self. This is a very big issue.
July 20th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Veronica—it can’t be done. You can use the interface…go to “Account”–>”edit friends”–>”phonebook”–>At the top of the list of imported contacts, you’ll see the link—”…to delete any contacts imported from your phone click here.” Go ahead. Click there. On the pop up window, click on the “this page” link. That will take you to a page to remove your imported contacts. Click “Remove.” A message will appear telling you that FB is removing your imported contacts & it might take awhile. Give it as much time as you want. Go back. Check. They’ll still be there because the removal tool doesn’t work. FB doesn’t want you to remove your contacts. I tried with 3 different operating systems (Vista, Windows XP, Mac OSX) as well as different browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome). FaceBook has your information, & they’re not letting it go. Best bet—delete your account. But there’s no guarantee your information will leave FaceBook’s hands even if you delete your account.
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Facebooks latest Scam is designed to make its 500 million users be total junkies of their incessent lying and theft of private information, they stole my whole phonebook and they are now holding it ransom, the only thing they deserve is a massive cyber katrina to wipe them out for good
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:11 pm
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August 2nd, 2010 at 7:01 pm
The remove contacts feature doesen’t work like everyone says. If anyone finds out how to delete the contacts let me know.
September 13th, 2010 at 5:53 am
It also doesn’t work for me.
September 27th, 2010 at 6:37 am
It simply does not work!
October 7th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
I tried to delete the contacts by following the on-screen instructions, and it just doesn’t work. What’s up with that? It just says that it is deleting and will take a few minutes… but that was 8 hours ago.
November 18th, 2010 at 6:57 am
please REMOVE MY EMAIL FROM RECEIVING THE BIBLE ON FACEBOOK
November 18th, 2010 at 6:58 am
REMOVE MY EMAIL FROM RECEIVING THE BIBLE ON FACEBOOK
January 16th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
It has to be said here now and for all. What Naziism was for Germany facebook is for privacy. Forget your information being safe. Forget your rights. If ever the Inland Revenue or Homeland Security want to use your phonebook, it’s theirs to use for good. You have no right to anything once it enters the domain FACEBOOK. FUCK FACEBOOOK FASCIST OPEN PLATFORM BULLSHIT. WAKE UP. YOU HAVE BEEN FRAMED.