Mac Mail Previous Recipients List Question

[schwine1]

When starting to fill in an email address in Mac Mail, email addresses appear that are "not" in the
WIndow > Previous Recipients list.
I'm using Mac Mail version 13.4 with Mac OSX Catalina version 10.15.7.
Again, email addresses appear that are not in the Previous Recipients list.
Thanks for information on how to remove unwanted email addresses given the above situation.

 

[Rod]

I'm not sure about this because I don't use the Apple Mail app but I think it's common for Mail apps in general to choose from the Contacts list. There may be some preference in Mail to favour Previous or Recent Recipients but that's not how Spark works.

 

[IWT]

When starting to fill in an email address in Mac Mail, email addresses appear that are "not" in the
WIndow > Previous Recipients list.
I'm using Mac Mail version 13.4 with Mac OSX Catalina version 10.15.7.
Again, email addresses appear that are not in the Previous Recipients list.
Thanks for information on how to remove unwanted email addresses given the above situation.

Apple Mail can "suggest" email addresses from within your Contacts even if they have not emailed you. In other words, they would not appear in the Previous Recipients List.

For example: say you start an email address with "John", then Apple will often suggest surnames etc for any "Johns" you have in your contracts; but they may never have emailed you previously.

Ian

 

[Rod]

As Ian suggests above, this is how it works for me too. If I have a recipient that is not in my contacts then I usually "reply" to their email. After doing that, at least in Spark, that email is added to my "replies" list but not my contacts, unless I choose to do so.

 

[IWT]

After doing that, at least in Spark, that email is added to my "replies" list but not my contacts, unless I choose to do so.

Same here. I'm with Apple Mail.

Ian

 

[Rod]

Ah, so it's the same. I wasn't sure.

 

[Jimmysb]

I also find in Apple Mail that Siri finds possible contacts from various sources.

 

[schwine1]

If an unwanted email address pops up, and one that is not in the Previous Recipients list, how can you permanently remove it from the list of options that appears when typing in an email address? Maybe it's not possible. That would be unfortunate because if you no longer have a need for one or more email addresses, their appearance is of no relevance.

 

[pm-r]

When starting to fill in an email address in Mac Mail, email addresses appear that are "not" in the
WIndow > Previous Recipients list.

Personally, I've often found that little Quirk of Apple's Mail.app to be very annoying when it's not obvious where is fetching the recipient's name from.

To prevent it from happening, download a copy of Find Any File.app if you don't have it already, and search for the recipient's name you don't want used, and if you never need to use their name or the file associated with it, then you could just trash everything FAF finds, or select the ones that are found that are obvious and maybe causing the problem.

That method should work as I only use POP accounts and have used it with them successfully.

Find Any File (FAF) app download:

Find Any File

apps.tempel.org

Good luck.



- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

trash everything FAF finds,

Sorry, but that's really bad advice, there, Patrick. The OP should at least examine what FAF finds, if anything, and make an educated decision. With the default being to NOT delete anything unless the OP really, really knows what they are doing. Where that one name is may hold other more valuable data that should not be deleted.

 

[pm-r]

Sorry, but that's really bad advice, there, Patrick.

Sorry, I guess I should have been much more specific and should have said "Trash anything FAF finds that might be associated with Apple Mail that contains the particular offending name" which I assumed one would have assumed.

It should be pretty obvious to the user what found items would possibly be associated with Apple Mail. Leave everything else alone.


- Patrick
=======

 

[schwine1]

Thanks for the information of FAF.
I will carefully examaine FAF results and proceed with caution.