Smart Groups in Address Book

I want to create a smart group that contains all of the contacts I have who live in a given city. Because I don't have mailing addresses for everyone, one of the conditions I have entered into the definition of the smart group is:
Phone -- contains -- (area code)
The reason for putting the parentheses around the area code is to avoid spurious entries (i.e. phone numbers that just happen to contain that sequence of three numbers, even though it is not the area code. The problem I'm having is that this works for some contacts and not others! Can anyone imagine what would cause this inconsistent behaviour? Why doesn't the filter catch everybody with this area code?

If you remove the second condition does the first produce the results you expect?
AK

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Cannot send email to Smart Group from Address Book

I created several Smart Groups in Address Book but I can't use any of them to send email. When I right-click the group name and choose Send Email, it opens my default email program (Thunderbird) and puts only the name of the Smart Group into the To: field, not the actual addresses.
If I try to actually send the message, I get the error that (name of group) "is not a valid e-mail address because it is not of the form user@host. You must correct it before sending the email."
What am I doing wrong? How can I get it to paste the actual addresses and not just the name of the group? I looked at the Edit Distribution List window and all the addresses are there.
I'm using OS X 10.5.7, Address Book 4.1.2 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.22.
Thanks in advance.

What is the exact message you get when sending fails -- does it say there are one or more invalid addresses, or what?
Having a name in the list without email address or possibly one separated by comma between last and first might result similarly in an invalid address, and Mail will likely refuse to send to any. But if the message is from the SMTP, that might depend on the provider's policies for that.
Ernie

Syncing Smart Groups from Address Book

Spent a lot of time creating a smart group in address book, only to find that iphone sync doesn't recognize "Smart Groups", only regular groups. Maybe the engineers can write some script to fix this little bugaboo to have the sync software recognize smart groups from Address Book and place them in the box so that the user can select the smart group and not have to sync the whole address book. Thanks.
tjrmac

Yes. Please. It would be great if the syncing of smart groups were to be added. Right now with the large amount of address' I manage for business, it's important that I see the same groups on my iPhone.
Please add.

Smart Groups in Address Book not syncing to Contacts

I have a couple of Smart Groups in Address Book on my primary Mac, and I sync Address Book with Contacts on my iPhone 4 through MobileMe.
Today, I noticed that, under Groups in Contacts on the iPhone 4, these Smart Groups do NOT show up. How can I make these Smart Groups on the Mac to sync and show up in Contacts on the iPhone 4?

I just found an answer myself: https://discussions.apple.com/message/4902780#4902780

"Smart Groups" in Address Book not syncing to the iPhone

"Smart Groups" in Address Book not syncing to the iPhone
Normal Groups sync but smart groups do not.
Anyone else have this issue or know of a fix?
Thanks.

This same concept applies to syncing two macs via .Mac
The method I use for iPhone is this.
Define your smart group as needed.
Define a read group with a similar or convenient name.
From time to time drag your whole smart group to the real group.
The real group is the one that then syncs to your iPhone.
As a safety factor, I usually clear all entries from my real group before I drag over the updated smart group.
Anyway, this is simple and works well.
Hope that helps.

Smart Groups in Address Book Do Not Update

I use Smart Groups in Address Book in Lion. It has worked great before the upgrade to Lion. Now when I create an entry with the proper fields to activate the entry go to a Smart Group. It doesn't. I have compared the parameters and compared with other addresses with the same parameters and still no update of the Smart Group.

This same concept applies to syncing two macs via .Mac
The method I use for iPhone is this.
Define your smart group as needed.
Define a read group with a similar or convenient name.
From time to time drag your whole smart group to the real group.
The real group is the one that then syncs to your iPhone.
As a safety factor, I usually clear all entries from my real group before I drag over the updated smart group.
Anyway, this is simple and works well.
Hope that helps.

How can I get smart group in address book to email?

digimurr
Feb 15, 2012 9:58 AM
Hi
I'm trying to send an email out to a smart group I created which has about 150 members. I right click send email while in the address book. The group ends up in the 'To:' field. I do a 'cmd A' to select all and move them to the 'bcc' field. I put my email address in the 'To' field. I create the subject line and body text which containes a url and an image with a url link.
When I press send it immediately moves to my outbox and sits there with no activity showing in the MAIL ACTIVITY preview pane.... I've left it for quite a while thinking it might take a while but nothing changes.
When I send it to my self only it works. I've tried taking a smaller group last names A-C 30 recipients and it does the same thing.
Would appreciate some help if you have had the same problem or maybe know what I've done wrong. Oh, I've also tried it sending it out on me.com and shaw.ca email accounts...
Thanks
Murray Brown
Using Lion 10.7.3
Imac 27
I7
8 gig ram
1 TB drive
iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

If you want to "send an email" to the group, you need to get the group into your email client's Contacts first...
Select your Group > Select All
From Address Book.App "Help" (±10 years old)
*See emphasis below* -
Importing and exporting vCards
A vCard, or "virtual address card," is a standard method of exchanging data between applications. Address Book can create and read vCards, so if you have another application that also works with the vCard format, you can import or export addresses as vCards.
Also, you can send your own card to other people in vCard format. They can use the vCard to add your information to their address books.
You can also use vCards to add addresses to the Contacts list on your iPod.
To create a vCard, drag an address card out of the Address Book window.
To add someone else's vCard to your address book, drag it into the Address Book window.
To create a single vCard with multiple entries, drag more than one card out of the Address Book window.
To create multiple vCards at the same time, hold the Option key when dragging multiple cards out of the Address Book window.
You can also work with vCards using commands in the File menu.
Address Book also supports Lightweight Directory Interchange Format (LDIF). LDIF is an ASCII file format used to exchange information and enable synchronization of that information between Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers. You can't export information from Address Book in LDIF format; you can only import it. Address Book can import and export vCards.
To determine the format of a document, select the document and choose File > Get Info. The format, or kind of document, is listed at the top.
If another application won't accept vCards in the default 3.0 format, try changing the format to 2.1 in the vCard pane of Address Book Preferences, and send the vCard again.
ÇÇÇ

How do I make Smart Groups in Address Book in iCloud?

I have Smart Groups in my Address Book on my iMac but they don't appear in iCloud. Can anyone tell me how to do this?
Many thanks in anticipation.

Welcome to the Apple Community.
iCloud.com doesn't appear to support smart groups in contacts (for that matter it doesn't support smart mailboxes in mail either

Syncing smart groups between Address Book and iPhone

When I do my regular iPhone synch, it will import regular groups but doesn't seem to want to import Smart Groups. Am I doing something wrong? If not, is there a workaround? Thanks, Katie

That's the only solution I've been able to come up with, but it makes Smart Groups useless in my Address Book. I was hoping I was doing something wrong.
Glad to know others are doing the same thing.
Thanks so much.
Katie

Using a smart address group from Address Book

I might be asking sth already been answered but I cant find it, so sorry, but how do you send an email to a group of contacts who have been grouped by a Smart Group in Address Book? Address Book's help says
If you don’t have a group of addresses, create one.
Creating groups or foldersChoose File > Send Updates.
In the dialog that appears, select the group or groups you want to notify.
Type a subject title and a message, and then click Send.
The trouble is that Send Updates is grey-ed out - see below!
What? How am I meant to follow those instructions if the menu option is grey-ed out?
Helen.

Helen,
In your original question, your screen shot shows that the active application is AddressBook, and you are trying to use its File menu. The option you discuss is for sending updates of your own address card, not for sending out group emails. In other words, if you change your own contact details in AddressBook, you can send the new contact details out using this menu option. I hope that this is what you intended, rather than simply sending out an email to a [Smart] group as others have discussed.
However, I cannot get the 'Send Updates' option in the File menu to be disabled in the way you have managed. I note that you are still in the edit mode on the current contact in the screen shot (the Edit button has blue text instead of black). I also note that 'Save' in the File menu is enabled, implying that you have a currently unsaved change somewhere. Maybe one of these issues is preventing you sending out your new contact details.
I expect by now that you have sorted this out yourself. If not, have you tried closing AddressBook and re-opening to resolve the unsaved issue?

Color code groups in address book

Is there any way to color code groups so that when mail comes in I know to associate it with a specific group. I was able to do this in entourage but have switched to apple mail.

As already described, create a new Rule in Mail.app (Mail -> Preferences -> Rules), that reads:
if (ANY) of the following conditions are met:
(Sender is member of group) (xxxxxxxxx)
Perform the following actions:
(Set Color) (Of Background (or text as you prefer) to (Any color you wish)
Save the rule.
Before doing that, you might want to create a few Groups (or Smart Groups) in Address Book with the people you want to color.
Hope this helps.
Message was edited by: Martin Marconcini (changed sqared brackets for parenthesis)

How can I add multiple addresses to a group within address book?

I realize you can add in addresses by going to 'Message' then 'add Sender to Address Book,' but what I'm interested in doing is within Apple Mail, adding multiple addresses into a specific group within address book. I've tried to do this using mail scripts but keep getting an error.
Is it possible to do this?
Thanks.
David

So far, FWIW all I've got is individual AddToAddressBook, then in AB itself, drag and drop one by one from the main list into the desired group.

Sharing certain groups in address book rather than the whole address book

Hi
I haven't got server yet in our office but we are looking to do this. Currently we just share calendars and other bits and pieces but I'm looking to get server in place. Sharing the address book requires giving a user our iCloud password and letting them look at the address book as a whole. We really only want to share certain phone numbers like our company staff phone numbers rather than our financial clients and other sensitive contacts.
Is it possible to only allow a "user" to access certain, or 1 group in address book rather than the whole address book library itself by using osx server
Many thanks

Hi Jaime,
I just wanted to jump in here with a quick question... on Mac OS X Server my understanding was that with the open directory, you can't designate organizational groups for the ldap service. Without that ability, how are you limiting what ldap users can see?
In our setup, our LDAP settings would be similar to
cn=users,dc=example,dc=com
What format would you use to say show only members of the group "examplegroup"?
Thanks!

How to create a group in address book from a mail folder

I have a mailbox folder in mail with about 100 emails. I want to add all of these email addresses to a new group in address book app. How can I add all of theses at one time to a new group. I dont want to add each email address one at a time. Is there a way to select all of my mail and just make a new group from that?

One of Andreas Amann's Mailscripts will do the address harvesting - I don't know if it puts them in a group.
AK

Selected groups in address book

How to return the names (or ids) of selected groups in Address Book?

I got responses from other sources that Address Book will not return selected groups.
So I did this instead ( How to post a script without loosing formatting? )
-- copy to clipboard
-- email addresses of selected group(s)
tell application "Address Book"
set group_list to name of every group
set _groups to choose from list group_list ¬
with title "Address Book Groups" multiple selections allowed true ¬
OK button name "Select Groups"
set elist to ""
set enum to 0
repeat with ggg in _groups
repeat with ppp in person in group ggg
try
set elist to elist & value of email 1 of ppp & return
set enum to enum + 1
end try
end repeat
set elist to elist & return -- separate groups
end repeat
set the clipboard to elist
display dialog "Copied " & enum & " addresses to the clipboard" default button "Ok" buttons {"Ok"}
end tell
-----

Smart Groups in Address Book

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