Stop Mail filling out unwanted information in Address Book contact's

I originally posted this problem in the MobileMe forum ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1765577&tstart=0 ) thinking it was that but having not received any replies there and now realising it is Mail/Address Book causing it I hope to have more luck here!
I created a contact in Address Book a while back which I gave the first name 'Daddy' and, understandably, left the second blank, however my Dad has his email account set to display the name Peter Ledger so every time I send him an email it seems to try and be clever and see that the contact I have associated with that address does not have a second name and try and add it in for me so I end up with the contact 'Daddy Ledger' which is just weird!
Is there any way of stopping it doing this? ... it is quite annoying having to edit the contact each time I send him an email and as MobileMe syncs the information across if I forget to do it I get funny looks when I get a call and name on the screen reads 'Daddy Ledger'!

Yes, this has been a feature since 10.2. But I believe I have discovered a way to stop it entirely. It will also stop contacts from being added to your Previous Recipients list in Mail. Copy/paste this command into Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.mail SuppressAddressHistory -bool true
Then you can change all your contacts that have been modified previously by incoming email, and they should not change again unless you make the change. Also, Mail will no longer add any email address to the Previous Recipients list.
Mulder

Similar Messages

How can I move address book information between Address Book and Entourage?

(I have the same question regarding iCal and Entourage.) I have a lot of important information to enter, info that would be very difficult to relocate. I had some problems with iCal awhile back (it started randomly deleting events), so I am trying to figure out which program(s) to use. Since I don't have much experience with these, I would ideally like to be able to start in Entourage since that program seems better laid out for me, but be able to export the information to Address Book and iCal so I can make use of the Address Book widget feature, etc.
Is it realistically possible to export from Entourage into AB and iCal and how do you it?
Also, I have a first generation iPod, and just got an iPod Touch so that I could have access to this information on the go, along with the rather lame "notes" approach to entering information (while I hope for a free upgrade that will allow me to edit my calendar). So I am also trying to figure out:
How do I export Entourage information onto my iPod Touch? Can it be done directly easily now or does it need to go through AB and iCal?
I've done that on my old iPod, but it was very confusing between "identities"?? and remembering exactly how to do it again one I figured it out. I had to locate a copy of Tiger just to manage to get the iPod Touch, so I am grateful for any suggestions of the best way to do this.

''' "I thought FF29 was supposed to be the most customizable Firefox yet?" ''' <br />
Whoever told you that was incorrect, as far as I am concerned. Firefox still is more customizable that the "competition", but not as much as previous versions were.
The Home button can be moved, but the Back / Forward combo button is attached to the Address Bar - they can't be separated.
The combo Stop / Reload button is locked in the Address Bar.<br />
The old "Activity Indicator" is gone. Deemed unnecessary with the loading animation on the left corner of each tab, where the Favicon appears once the page is fully loaded.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-make-new-firefox-look-like-old-firefox
Many users are installing the Classic Theme Restorer extension. <br />
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ <br />But I don't think that is going to turn out to be along term solution. As users start installing other extensions I think they are going to run into compatibility issues where the new extension "expects" the user to be using what Firefox came with - not the "retro" features.

POP3 Mail & Address Book contacts have gone!

I recently did some housekeeping on my Mum's iBook G4 (OSX 10.4.10), part of which was purchasing and installing SpamSieve into Mail. This all went fine. Today she said all the mail in her POP3 inbox had gone, she couldn't send/receive and all her address book contacts had gone (Except hers and Apples).
I've got the iBook now and have noticed that her account type in Mail has somehow changed to a .Mac account (did I somehow do this, or did she???). This is obviously the root of the problem as the
email address now has '@mac.com' appended to the end and the incoming mail server is now 'mail.mac.com' and the outgoing is 'smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress' which is all wrong. I'm unable to change the account type back to POP or the incoming mail server from 'mail.mac.com' (it's greyed out) back to what it was.
I have now created a second account with the correct POP settings and have received in all unread email, but the read email messages have gone. I am unable to send as the new correct pop account is only offered the incorrect outgoing server ('smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress').
Having read several post on this forum, I feel the Mail/Address Book issues are connected and that maybe the application(s) database(s) have been corrupted. I've tried the Address Book remedy at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5248351&#5248351 but this does nothing. The 'user'>Library>Mail folder shows the two accounts as two separate folders. The recently recreated account folder has the new unread messages in the 'INBOX.mbox folder, but the older account folder (which now has 'MAC-' added to the front of its name) only has 'info.plist' in a 'INBOX.imapmbox' folder!
I don't believe any back-ups are available. Can anyone help me restore her old unread mail, and possibly her address book contacts?
I've also just noticed that SpamSieve does not launch as it should when I launch Mail, even though It was purchased and the scripts installed correctly.

Didn’t you make a backup prior to the housekeeping?
I don’t know why would Spotlight find contacts that are gone from Address Book (if that’s what you mean), but as far as Mail goes, under some circumstances (e.g. lack of available disk space, filesystem corruption, repeated crashes), Mail may discard the current ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist preferences file and create a new one. This file is where all the account settings are stored. As a result, all the non-.Mac account settings (but not the messages themselves) are lost. If you had a .Mac account, its settings would appear to have been preserved because Mail would set up that account automatically using the System Preferences > .Mac settings.
What’s the capacity and space available on the startup disk? Take a look at the comments about disk space in the following article, in case they apply to you:
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what’s it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, and ensuring that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), quit Mail if it’s running, and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, just in case something else goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. This is where all your mail is stored.
You have three options now:
(1) Restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist from a backup if you have one. Mail shouldn’t be running while you do this.
(2) Set up your mail accounts again (you may want to quit Mail and trash the new com.apple.mail.plist first to start over). If given the option to import existing mailboxes or something like that, don’t. Just enter the account information and Mail will automagically rediscover the data in ~/Library/Mail/ when done. You’ll also have to re-configure most of your settings in Mail > Preferences. For spam-related security reasons, the first thing you should do is go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it’s enabled.
(3) Mail may have renamed the old preferences file to com.apple.mail.plist.saved. If that’s the case, you may try trashing the new com.apple.mail.plist and renaming the old com.apple.mail.plist.saved back to com.apple.mail.plist. Again, be sure Mail isn’t running while doing this. Given the circumstances, there exists the possibility that com.apple.mail.plist.saved became corrupt, but that often is not the case and the settings can usually be restored by just renaming the file back to com.apple.mail.plist.
As a side effect of re-creating com.apple.mail.plist, Mail might rename Outbox (which is where messages waiting to be sent are stored) to Delivered. The name of that mailbox is actually a misnomer, as it would contain messages (if any) that couldn’t be delivered for some reason. You can delete that mailbox if you wish.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.

I have a 4 yr. old iMac. I recently got a trojan on it that sent out emails to my address book. I got Norton Internet Security for Mac, and now my Mac is running slow, with way too many spinning beach balls of death. Was it a mistake to install Norton?

I have a 4 yr. old iMac. I recently got a trojan on it that sent out emails to my address book. I got Norton Internet Security for Mac, and now my Mac is running slow, with way too many spinning beach balls of death. Was it a mistake to install Norton?

yankeecat wrote:
I have a 4 yr. old iMac. I recently got a trojan on it that sent out emails to my address book.
There is no such Trojan or other malware known today that will do that using OS X nor has there ever been one. The most probable explanation is that somebody hacked into your e-mail account on the server, so you should change that password to something stronger right away. If it had come from your Mac then there would almost certainly be copies of those messages in your Sent Mail mailbox.

Address Book contacts not showing up in Mail

I'm unable to access my address book contacts from Mail. The wheel on the right side of the recipient box spins but never finds the contact or group I'm searching. Can anyone help?

Please follow these directions to delete the Mail "sandbox" folder.
Back up all data.
Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder named "com.apple.mail" selected. If it does, move the selected folder — not just its contents — to the Desktop. Leave the Finder window open for now.
Log out and log back in. Launch Mail and test. If the problem is resolved, you may have to recreate some of your Mail settings. You can then delete the folder you moved and close the Finder window. If you still have the problem, quit Mail again and put the folder back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place. Post your results.
Caution: If you change any of the contents of the sandbox, but leave the folder itself in place, Mail may crash or not launch at all. Deleting the whole sandbox will cause it to be rebuilt automatically.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

On iCloud we are currently getting frequent "Contacts has stopped responding" error message. We are a small company that accesses our address book contacts off-site.

On iCloud we are currently getting frequent "Contacts has stopped responding" error message. We are a small company that accesses our address book contacts off-site. Any solutions?

I've deleted all future appointments from the Hotmail calendar.
I've left the iPad overnight "thinking" about removing Calendar from iCloud and gave up this morning.
My son has school information on the iPad.
Please help???
Regards,
Anthony

G-mail doesn't accept my 5.1.10 version of Safari. Will a newer version allow me to transfer my address book contacts to g-mail?

I recently forwarded my e-mail from my local provider to g-mail. How do I transfer my address book contacts to g-mail contacts. Or how do I use MacMail with a g-mail account?

Add the Gmail account to Mail/Preferences/Accounts. Click the + sign at the bottom left and add it.
Try another browser as a test.
Firefox
If you want to upgrade the OS, the following applies.
Check that your computer is compatible with Mountain Lion/Mavericks/Yosemite.
To check the model number hold down the option/alt key, go to the Apple menu and select System Information.
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) model number 5,1 or higher
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) model number 3,1 or higher
Your Mac needs:
OS X v10.6.8 or OS X Lion already installed
2 GB or more of memory (More is better - 4 GB minimum seems to be the consensus)
8 GB or more of available space
Check to make sure your applications are compatible. PowerPC applications are no longer supported after 10.6.
Application Compatibility
Applications Compatibility (2)
Do a backup before installing.

Address book contacts disappeared yesterday out of nowhere... how do I -

Hi,
Address book contacts disappeared yesterday out of nowhere... on my new MacBook Pro Core Duo. How do I re-import contacts from a "Carbon Copy" of my old MacBook G4 address book? I have a perfect copy of my Hard Drive on an External Hard Drive. However, I didn't set up my new MacBook Pro - and can't believe all my contacts just disappeared yesterday...
Suggestions? Step by Step instructions?
Thanks in advance...!

You’re welcome.
All you have to do is copy those files & folders from the backup to the location where they should be, replacing any files with the same name that may currently be there. Your home folder is /Users/username/. And you must first quit any applications that may access those files.
Things are more involved if you do any kind of synchronization, though. Actually that could be the reason your contacts disappeared in the first place. In that case, the procedure would be as follows:
1. If you have a .Mac account and .Mac synchronization of Address Book data is enabled either in Address Book > Preferences > General or in System Preferences > .Mac, disable it before proceeding.
2. You may also need to reset the entire sync history (iSync > Preferences > Reset Sync History) to avoid synchronization issues if you use .Mac or iSync to synchronize your Address Book with other computers or devices.
3. Quit 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.
4. In the Finder, copy the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist preferences file and the ~/Library/Application Support/AddresBook folder from the backup to the corresponding location within your home folder, replacing the files with the same name currently there. Alternatively, to avoid accidentally overwriting any files, you may first move to the Desktop the files that should be replaced and trash them after checking that everything is OK.
5. If your data has been successfully restored and .Mac synchronization of Address Book data was enabled at the beginning, enable it again, go to System Preferences > .Mac > Advanced, click Reset Sync Data, and choose the appropriate options to reset the Address Book data stored on the .Mac server with the data locally stored on the computer, i.e. sync data must flow from the computer to the .Mac server.

Mail fails to recognize names from address book

My information in address book shows as follows
Name: J Doe
Email address: [email protected]
If someone has me in their address book as Doe John and sends an email to me at my email address ([email protected]), Mail.app does not recognize me and asks me if I want to 'Add to Address Book'.
The same happens if a sender has a minor change in the Name (such as even a dot in the name) of any recipient, regardless of the fact that I have the correct name in the address book. Mail fails to recognize the recipient even though the email address is identical, and will ask me if I want to 'Add to Address Book'.
One would expect Mail to use just the email address and recognize the contact as already being in the Address Book.
I just spent a good three hours investigating this.
There have been numerous posts discussing this both here and elsewhere over the years but I'm surprised that there has not been a solution. Here are some examples..
1. Mail can't recognize my contact email address
2. Address Book editing
3. Mail doesn't show names from the Address Book
In the 3rd example above, Golden Shoes suggests that this is the same for every email client, but I must disagree because Postbox and Thunderbird does display the information correctly from the Address Book, infact Postbox does this impressively I must add.
It would be great if this was fixable in Mail. Is there a solution for this?

I followed your suggestions.
Both AB and AB within Mail were empty of contacts after I deleted my iCloud contacts from the mac. I even did a reboot just in case. After this, I rechecked contacts and all my contacts appeared again both in AB and AB within Mail.
I quit and reopened Mail to find that the problem still persisted. I know and rechecked that these contacts are not present in my previous recipients list so it is definitely not that database which is preventing this.
The funny thing (maybe not funny since this is really bugging me) is that Mail on iOS (iPhone) works just fine. The Mail on iPhone seems to query the sender/recipient email address, accurately realizes that the contact is already in the AB, and shows as such. The same email in Mail.app on the mac asks me if I want to add the contact to AB.
Is this really a unique situation? Is everyone else not experiencing the same?
If you ask someone to change your name within their address book and send an email to you, does Mail on the mac recognize you regardless of what that sender named you as? Or does it ask you to add to AB?

I have a MacBook Pro, an Ipad and an I-Phone, and here's the problem (unless I'm wrong, and I would love to be corrected on this.) If I change a contact's information in Address Book (new email, new address, etc.) I have to do it on all 3 devices! Synci

I have three APPLE products however my frustration comes from the understanding that if I change information on a Contact in Address Book on my computer, when I sync my devices, the old information will come back to my Address Book Contact from my other devices! ONE DEVICE NEEDS TO BE THE BOSS! I think it's crazy that I have to manually correct change of address, email info, whatever changes for one contact, MANUALLY on all three devices so that the information is the same. I've deleted old email addresses from my computer, just to have that old email address reloaded from one of my other devices during a sync. Is there a solution for this?

I see what your problem is. You are physically connected the devices. It would be better if the information was in iCloud. Then they all would sync instantly.

Importing AOL Address Book/Contact List into Apple Mail Program

This is probably an old and already answered queation, but it has just come up for me. Does anyone know how to export the AOL Address Book/Contact List so it can be imported into the Apple Mail Program? I would like not to have to reinter all the address when I drop AOL.
@ GHz Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.4) No DVD

The AOL Service Assistant works fine for transfering the AOL contacts to the Apple Address Book. However, I was unable to get the AOL favorites to tansfer to Safari. It keeps hanging up with the rotating basketball. Any further suggestions?
466 MHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) No DVD

HT2486 My mail account is linked to my address book. The address book shows First Name, Last Name. When I try to insert a name into an email, the order is reversed...Last Name, First Name. How can I make the email read in the same order...First Name, Las

My Mail Account in linked to my address book. The address book shows First Name, Last Name. When I start an email in Mail, the name does appear but the order is reversed...Last Name, First Name. I must have changed a setting somewhere but I don't know where. Does anyone know how to correct it?

I don't have any problem with my system. My guess is there is something there you aren't quite getting. I'd recommend a visit to your Apple Store, AASP or to contact AppleCare so they can coach you personally.
You can also play with the Address Book Preferences. However to see how changing a Preference affects the Address Book drag the Preferences window off of the Address Book so you can see both the Preferences window and Address Book Windows. Then toggle a Preference and you will see it instantly changes in the Address Book.

Problem: Only receiving e-mails from address book contacts

BlackBerry Curve 8330m on Sprint BIS.
Only e-mail account registered is a university (.edu) email address.
No filters set up in BIS whatsoever.
Problem: If an address NOT in my address book sends me an e-mail, I do not receive it on my BlackBerry. I'm only seeing e-mails sent by people in my address book. I would prefer to receive ALL e-mails.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

That also happened to me for a few days. I was looking for some solution in forums and I found this: the same problem and no solution. Then the light came to me:
A few days ago I changed some security settings without clear idea about consequenses. Now I have fixed it:
1) click "OPTION" menu
2) click "SECURITY OPTIONS" menu
3) click "SECURITY SERVER" menu
4) Now unblock the incoming messages for each one of the services: uncheck SMS, MMS, PIN, BIS, BES
5) Save settings
(My blackberry language is spanish but I think translation is right)
... In my case I had blocked all the incoming email BIS messages except the coming from the contacts in my address book. I hope this works for both you with the same problem in case you still (10 months later) don't have fixed it or change to iPhone :-)
Traduce

When forwarding an e-mail I have lost the address book contact list on the left side.

I used to have the address book contact list on the left side of the page being forwarded to allow easy selection of addressees. It's gone and I need it back.
Thank you very much

Open a Write window and press F9 to toggle the Contact Sidebar on and off.
You can also turn it on from the View menu in the Write window.

Address Book contacts vanished - help!

I'm hyperventilating....my entire Address Book contact list has disappeared, four years' worth of critical info! I'm hoping someone can help me find/recover the data on my iMac.
Background: Last night, some of the apps on my iMac froze for an unknown reason. I was using Safari, left for a bit, came back and all of the Mac apps - Address Book, Mail, iCal, etc. had stopped responding. I Force Quit out of them, and rebooted my Mac. Mail and iCal were fine, all data still there.
Didn't use Address Book until just now - I opened it and it's empty - just the default 'new' data file that has my basic card and the Apple card. EEEKKK! I have years of irreplacable data in that missing file. What happened? I've never had such a problem in the 3 years I've had this Mac and system. Someone help ASAP, please! I have no addresses to send mail, no key business data or anything!
The Address Book app is still there, and the data folder has these files: ABPerson.skIndexInverted (292 kb, yesterday 9:51 pm), ABSubscribedPerson.skIndexInverted (8 kb), AddressBook.data (32 kb, today, 12:32 pm), AddressBook.data.previous (yesterday 9:53 pm), plus Images folder.
Thanks in advance if you can save my sanity and data.
Abby

Well, if it's not being found thwn it's likely some kind of Disk corruption, the files may or may not still exist, but if the OS or other APPs can't find them then it's very likly the space those files use has been freed for use in writing to the Disk, which OSX does far too often.
a virus or something?
Not likely a virus.
And, what am I supposed to do next if I do recover from another computer (all I have is a PC laptop...)?
Cannot be done from a PC, sorry.
Am I just looking to find the Address Book file?
Yes, mostly.
more panicked than before....
Very sorry to be the messenger here, but if that stuff is important to recover, I've given you my best advice... You need another Mac, or another HD to install to, boot from, try to recover to.
If I can or need to explain it better/clearer please let me know.

Stop Mail filling out unwanted information in Address Book contact's

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for