Previous recipients lost

Hi,
Using 10.4.11 on a G5 iMac I've lost the data somehow that comprised previous recipients-those you've written but haven't a formal spot for in your address book. The rest of the A.B. works OK. I have a regularly updated bootable external HD.
Can I just drag the folder ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/ from this bootable, into the same folder on the internal HD to restore the lost previous recipients? No need to first remove the same folder from our internal HD?
Thank you for any help!
Scott

Hi Scott.
You may replace the current ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder with the corresponding folder on the external HD, but quit first Address Book, Mail, and any other applications that might use Address Book for something — or just quit all applications to be on the safe side.
In order to avoid accidentally losing any data (which might happen as a result of copying files in the wrong direction by mistake, for example), instead of overwriting right away the AddressBook folder currently in ~/Library/Application Support/, rename it or move it elsewhere (e.g. to the Desktop), and delete it only after making sure everything works as expected and you don’t miss anything.

Similar Messages

Address Book Contacts and Mail Previous Recipients Missing/Empty/Deleted

At one point yesterday, I was happily catching up on some email using Mail. All was well. I toggled a message as Junk and went to forward it to [email protected], which was, of course, in my Previous Recipients list. Only this time it wasn't. I noticed, too, in iChat, that all of my buddies had reverted to their IM screen names from their normal Address Book-based First Name/Last Name. So I opened Address Book (which had not been running), and it was empty!
To the best of my recollection, though I have a .Mac account, there was no syncing that occurred during any of this. Worse, when I did a manual Sync to see if .Mac would restore my contacts, it didn't. My Address Book remained empty. Fortunately, it didn't propagate its emptiness to .Mac, which I checked via the Web.
When I fired up my spare iBook, everything seemed fine, and a sync there didn't blow away anything.
I found a few posts that recommended replacing my now empty AddressBook.data file with AddressBook.data.beforesave, which was large enough to seem like it might still have a lot of my contacts. I did this, and my Address Book and Previous Recipients were partially restored. The only problem is that the beforesave file was dated June 2004 and is missing all contact information over the past year and a half.
What the heck happened?! Is there any better solution out there? Any thoughts on why .Mac wasn't able to restore the file? Also, what does Previous Recipients have to do with the Address Book data files?

Is your iBook the way you want it? all of your addresses? if so maybe you could back up that database and replace the old one thats fallen to pieces. If you try that though theres no real chance I think of rebuilding that old one as far as I know. My entouage database was an all in one type of deal. when it fell apart, you lost everything. I went to the mac mail and address book after that. everything is in seperate folders with that stuff. usually I've only seen this on older running installs of OS X. Like there is a bunch of directory probs. then things gradually get goofier over time.
Thats strange it doesn't want to import contacts to your computer.
I'll ask around

Previous Recipients cleared after update?

After I allowed the latest security update to download and install, my previous recipients in my Mail program were cleared!
Can I get it back to pre-update status? I need those emails!
Anyone else had this problem and found a solution?

Hi,
Just had exactly the same problem. But it seemed to have healed during the evening. The problem is that I don't exactly know what I did that changed the behaviour of Mail.
1) I tried to open iCloud in Sys pref. It hangs, still.
2) Same thing with Accounts in Sys pref.
3) Opened Address book for the first time. It seems to have problems to connect to iCloud properly. Get the lost connection sign.
4) I copied the file mentioned above to my desktop. (~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr). I wanted to have a look at it and opened it up with TextWrangler.
After all this messing around, it worked. I'm sorry that I can't give you an exact answer. It seems like iCloud might be an issue. Also opening the file MailRecents might, might have affected something. Now this is wild guessing.
NB. iCloud works now from Sys pref. Hm... Is this necessary to get previous recipients working?... Clueless...

PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS DISAPPEARED!

Some how, my list of previous recipients in Mail suddenly has been reduced to only those addresses I've emailed in the last four days. That means MANY email addresses are now lost. (Yes, many addresses are in my Address Book, but many were not.) Spent a long time on the phone yesterday with Apple Care rep who could find no fix or reason why. This seems very random... something I could expect on a PC but not on a Mac. Please help!

Hi topspin520, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Unfortunately I've read of this happening before, it's usually Disk or OS corruption that leads to it.
First Quit Mail, then I'd backup these two Mail folders, by right clicking on them in the Finder, then choose Archive/Compress.
Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail
Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail Downloads
(Could be a different folder here if you chose such in Mail Prefs)
Right click on that Mail folder, choose archive, you'll get everything in the folder, and the folder itself in a file called Mail.zip, move it to a safe place, same for the Mail Downloads folder... only the plist is separate.
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, then move these +folder & file+ to the Desktop.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
Move this Folder to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/Mail/
Move this file to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/Envelope Index
Reboot.

How can I delete an auto complete address in Mail that is not in Previouse Recipients?

Hello. I have an e-mail address that comes up in auto complete in my e-mail when sending. It is NOT in previous recipients and
I am unable to delete it. Hope someone can help me with it. Thanks

Have found the answer on Apple discussion and was able to delete it in my Address Book.

How to delete the Previous Recipients list in iPhone 3G Mail

I would like to delete the list of previous recipients in my iPhone 3G Mail so that when I search it only shows addresses in my Contacts, not every single random address I may have used.
I know how to do this in Mail on my desktop, and I tried the option of replacing the Mail info on the iPhone with the info from the desktop, but it didn't work.
Anyone knows how to do this?

sanjinzvonic,
In my expeirence, the only way to do this is to restore your iPhone, setting it up as a new phone. You can try resetting all settings prior to this to see if that does it as well.
To reset all settings, navigate to Settings > General > Reset.
Backing Up, updating, and restoring your iPhone and iPod touch software
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
Hope this helps,
Raleigh

In mail, how do I print the list of Previous Recipients?

I'm using mail in 10.5.4. It works fine for me, including the capability of suggesting email addresses from the Previous Recipients list. But, of course, this runs only on my eMac at home.
I plan to be away for 3 weeks, and will be using email on various folks' computers, by contacting my email server directly (verizon.net). But my email server does not have my Previous Recipients list.
How can I print the Previous Recipients list?
In the Previous Recipients window, I find that I can select a single email address with a mouse click, and select all the recipients (command-a), but the copy command (command-c) does not work.
I've also tried to look at the file:
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBookApplication Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr,
but it is not in a readily viewable text format. The Unix "file" command describes it as an "SQLite database (Version 3)."
Does anyone know how to print a copy of the Previous Recipients, to take with me on vacation?
Thanks

This turns out to be more complicated than I had hoped, but it is possible.
The Apple mail program uses a database program available in Unix called “sqlite3.”
The executable is in /usr/bin.
For information about this program, type “man sqlite3” in a terminal window. Also, there is information on the web, at www.sqlite.org.
A friend whose day job is in database administration helped me work this out.
First, go the proper directory in a terminal window:
cd ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook
The file of interest is MailRecents-v4abcdmr.
Note that the “file” command describes this as:
file MailRecents-v4abcdmr
MailRecents-v4.abcdmr: SQLite database (Version 3)
sqlite3 MailRecents-v4.abcdmr
SQLite version 3.4.0
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite>
Let’s see the headers:
sqlite> .headers ON
Now, let’s get some information about what’s in this database file:
sqlite> select * from SQLITE_MASTER; /* don’t forget the semicolon */
/* lots of output */
The table ZABCDMAILRECENT is of interest to us. Note that the last 3 columns are called ZLASTNAME, ZFIRSTNAME, and ZEMAIL. We want these from the table, in columns, in filename.txt.
sqlite> .mode columns ZABCDMAILRECENT
sqlite> .width 15 15 36 /* make sure the columns are wide enough */
sqlite> .output filename.txt /* note: no ‘;’ */
sqlite:> select ZLASTNAME, ZFIRSTNAME, ZEMAIL from ZABCDMAILRECENT;
sqlite> .exit
Done. The email names and addresses are now in filename.txt, one per line.
Maybe, someday, someone at Apple will add this capability to mail.

Anyone know how to copy/export previous recipients list from Outlook to iCloud?

Hi,
Ever since using MobileMe and now iCloud to sync contacts with Outlook, I've had horrendous issues with mulitple duplicates within my contacts. In an attempt to resolve this, I've manually removed all the duplicates, synced with my iphone and ipad and iCloud and removed them from my local Outlook contacts folder. Then, within Outlook, all the contacts are only listed in the iCloud folder. This seems to be working well now for a few months, but now, every time I write a new email, there's no auto-suggest of my contacts emails, like there was before. Is there a file that stores a previous recipients list that can be copied or moved to accomodate emails being sent from my iCloud account?
Thanks for any help.

sanjinzvonic,
In my expeirence, the only way to do this is to restore your iPhone, setting it up as a new phone. You can try resetting all settings prior to this to see if that does it as well.
To reset all settings, navigate to Settings > General > Reset.
Backing Up, updating, and restoring your iPhone and iPod touch software
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
Hope this helps,
Raleigh

How do I get to the screen in Mail that allows you to delete multiple "Previous Recipients" from the list? I have seen it but cannot find it again. Help.

How do I get to the screen in Mail that allows you to delete multiple "Previous Recipients" from the list? I have seen this screen but cannot find it again. It shows all of the "Previous Recipients" in a long list. You can edit the list by selecting multiple names or all names with the command key and delete. Help.

Launch the Mail app on your Mac and go to Window>Previous Recipients.

Junk mail filter in yosemite doesn't work. i can't find the 'mark as junk' selection or 'remove from previous recipients' which would help to filter out spam.

junk mail filter in yosemite doesn't work. from the flags, i can't find the 'mark as junk' selection. Formerly clicking on the email address in question would allow one to 'remove from previous recipients' which would help to filter out spam. I've adjusted all the settings under mail preferences, but that is not helping.

Hello Diane162,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you would like to be able to filter some of the junk mail that you are receiving in Mail. The attached article has a lot of great information on junk mail filtering, including how to mark as junk and adjust the junk filter.
Mail (Yosemite): Reduce junk mail in your inbox
Cheers,
Joe

Import addresses into previous recipients but not into address book

I would like to import a list of email addresses into the previous recipients list. I know how to import them into my address book but I don't want them all in my address book. I just need them to be available to auto complete when I start typing them. Is there a way to do that?

Mail's previous recipients list is not a user modifiable database other than to remove entries in the database.

Is there more than one "Previous recipients" file?

Ancient addresses long deleted from my address book continue to populate emails.
I have done the Window --> Previous recipients thing. (I really have!) The ancient addresses are not there to delete!
I'm wondering if there is more than one "Previous recipients" file?
Any help appreciated -
Thanks!

OK. So these phantom email addresses belonged to you and not other people. Correct? Yes
Were they aliases to accounts you still have or were they old accounts you have since deleted? Explain what the phantom addresses were. These addresses belong to a POP account I have through work. I've used a couple of different addresses: e.g. roberta@ or redowney@ but the domain name has not changed. I'm going to see if the addresses are on my employer's server. Stay tuned.
Have you checked Messages and FaceTime to see if those addresses are listed there? Just checked - not there.
If you have an iPhone or iPad, when you start a new message, do these phantom addresses appear in the list? If so, do they have a circle i icon to the right of the address? If so, click the icon and delete it from there. Nope - do not appear.
These addresses are really old - like two or three years since I last used.

Somehow a new contact became associated with my email. Now all my email has her name on it. This happens only on my iMac, not on my other Apple devices. I have removed my email from her contact card and deleted her from previous recipients on Mail.

Somehow a new contact became associated with my email. Now all my email has her name on it. This happens only on my iMac, not on my other Apple devices. I have removed my email from her contact card and deleted her from previous recipients on Mail.

Check the settings in the Accounts for Mail.
Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Click on your email Account in the left column > What appears under Full Name in the right column?
If that is the incorrect name you're describing change it to your correct name.

Any way to mail all "Previous Recipients"?

I'm using Tiger. Is there a way to select everyone in my "Previous Recipients" list in Mail and send them an email? I know how to do this from the Address Panel window, but there are many people I email that I don't want to bother adding to my Address Book.

There is no built in way to select all in the mail app to delete all emails at once. However, Destef_12, found a way to do it and it is explained in this discussion.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22106590#22106590

How to restore previous recipients list

My previous recipients list was populated with many, many email addresses that I relied on to auto-fill in the "To:" field when sending new emails. The other day I noticed that it wasn't auto-filling anymore and discover the previous recipients list was empty. How did that happen? Can it be restored? I've read that there should be a MailRecents-v4.abcdmr file in /users/username/Library/Application Support/Address Book, but I don't see it. Am I looking for the correct file or is that for newer versions of Mac OSX or Mail?

Greetings,
You cannot restore the Previous Recipients list. If somebody (you, or someone else using your computer) deleted those entries, they're not coming back until you enter them again.
The file you refer to is not on Mac OS X 10.4, but even if it was, it wouldn't do you any good. You can't easily access that file or make it do anything; it's created by Address Book.

Previous recipients lost

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for