Safari Guesses Names When Filling Forms- How does it know them?

[PGB1]

Hi All!
On my computer, I have no entries in the Contacts app except my own name. I've not yet used the computer to send any e-mails. None of the e-mail addresses have a Contact list on the server or locally.

When filling out a from on a web site, when I typed the first letter of my last name, popped up was a list of people with last names that are in my old computer's Contacts app. I've not sent e-mails to most of them from that computer either.

I'm just curious how Safari knows about these contacts. Do any of you know the "magic" behind this?

Thanks for helping me learn how behind the scenes stuff works.
Paul

 

[RadDave]

Paul - I suspect you have iCloud syncing and/or some other cloud service, such as Google, that are making your 'previous' contacts available on your new computer - just a preliminary guess since I don't know if you're even using iCloud and what you may have activated? For example, below are some of my iCloud settings on my laptop. Dave
.

 

[ferrarr]

iCloud or even Siri, know some of these things about you. This info may be in their shared cloud storage. This info makes things easier for a lot of people, I believe.

 

[PGB1]

Thank You RadDave & Ferrarr for suggestions of where the information is stored.

I'm confused how iCloud can have the old address book. I never used iCloud in the old computer. Actually, it's so old iCloud is't available.

The new computer address book is empty except for my name. Never have I used Siri (yet). Don't have an iPhone. My wife has an iPad, but no contacts on it & certainly she'd never use the ones that showed up on the form (business contacts of mine).

It would be interesting to find out the path that Safari took to find the names from the old computer's address book- especially since they've never been on line anywhere. Wish I was that good of a detective!

 

[PGB1]

Maybe I found the path...
Somehow magically my Contacts on the new Mac is populated with entries from my Android phone's contacts list. I never even have opened Contacts except to check it once to find who is in there. The phones' G-mail address is also on the new computer's Mail app.

Now the challenge will be to figure out how to tell the either the phone or the computer or google not to send those addresses to the computer. I un-checked "enable this account" in Contacts settings and the entries left, but then they came right back.

 

[ferrarr]

You may have to take extreme measures. Delete all entries from your gmail webmail, as they have they own address book too.

 

[pm-r]

Maybe I found the path...
Somehow magically my Contacts on the new Mac is populated with entries from my Android phone's contacts

I just wanted to add another possibility, especially if you had used Mail.app previously, check your Mail application: window(menu) > Previous Recipients and check for any offending culprits.

You may also want to consider changing males settings for auto completion of address and contact names and disable it if it's goofing things up too much.

I think there might be another folder of old emails and the address is that aren't in your contact list but I can't recall its name or where Apple hid it.

Even if mail doesn't use it anymore, such folders may have been imported with a migration assistant and it would probably grab any addresses from those emails and use them when attempting to autocomplete your address list. Tracing the sources down can be a real PITA and Apple doesn't seem to like making it too easy to fix.

Good luck.


- Patrick
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[PGB1]

Thanks Bob for the plan of deleting the entries in gmail web mail and address book. The only one that had an address book with entries was the phone's address. I'll delete the entries & re-enter those I use.

Thanks Patrick for the other possibility to explore. The Previous Recipients had 6 entries, but none were what showed up when I was typing. (Perhaps none had the same letters in the names as did the form I filled out when the names popped up.)

I didn't use Migration Assistant, so nothing migrated over. (Skipped it in order not to pollute the new computer with old computer detritus. I plan to only move Documents & Photos over to the new computer- but manually.)

Having the list that I did not want pop up is probably a convenience for many. Apple does tend to make things convenient.
Being old school, I like everything separated and isolated from each other. I'm not a Sync kind of person.

 

[MacInWin]

It could also be the indexing done for Spotlight that discovered the various contact names from your Gmail account and used those to pre-populate the fields. And if you have the new Apple Intelligence turned on, that search is wider than it used to be, so that's another possible source. If you want to know more, click on System Settings and type in "Apple Intelligence" and then click the "Learn More..." link to get to the appropriate area of the macOS User Guide.

 

[PGB1]

The mystery deepens:
I opened Reminders App & Calendar App for the first time on the new computer. Both were populated with items from the old computer. Reminders on the new computer had all the reminders from the old computer. Calendar on the new computer had some of the events from the old computer, but not all.

I certainly can't guess how the new computer found the items on the old computer. None are stored in the cloud. The computers haven't ever been connected wirelessly or by a cable.

Crazy, huh?

 

[MacInWin]

Is the new machine logged into your AppleID? If so, it could be syncing from any other device logged into that same AppleID. It's not iCloud storage, or iCloud drive, just AppleID syncing.

 

[ferrarr]

Did you set up the new Mac by using Time Machine?

 

[PGB1]

Is the new machine logged into your AppleID? If so, it could be syncing from any other device logged into that same AppleID. It's not iCloud storage, or iCloud drive, just AppleID syncing.

Hi Jake,
Thanks for the good, interesting idea to investigate. The new Mac is logged into a brand new Apple ID. The old Mac had an Apple ID that was created when I bought it, but I never used it or logged in with it. No iCloud e-mail address for that one either.

Hi Bob,
Thanks for that good & interesting idea. I haven't used anything to transfer things to the new Mac. Nothing from the old Mac has been moved to the new Mac yet. They've never been connected with WiFi, a cable, Air drop. They don't know each other exists (yet).

I wonder if, since they both have Apple ID's, even though the old Mac never had Apple ID entered on the computer Apple somehow guessed they both were mine. The name for both is my name, but neither has an address, date of birth or phone number stated, The e-mails are different. (The new Mac is logged into iCloud with that ID.) Maybe the ip address tipped them off (Wild guess!)
Paul

 

[ferrarr]

They are smarter than you could believe.

It, more then likely all comes from your interactions with google, especially if your wife uses google email, text to inform you of other things.

 

[Rod]

The magic of AI.
But seriosly, when you create a Google account and use a Google product it lists all the things you are giving Google access to which includes your contacts list and other personal data.

 

[MacInWin]

I wonder if, since they both have Apple ID's, even though the old Mac never had Apple ID entered on the computer Apple somehow guessed they both were mine.

No. Apple doesn't guess at relationships. All it would take is for ONE accidental disclosure of a person's data and Apple would end up sued for way too much money to risk guessing.

The name for both is my name, but neither has an address, date of birth or phone number stated, The e-mails are different. (The new Mac is logged into iCloud with that ID.) Maybe the ip address tipped them off (Wild guess!)

I don't know what that means. By "name" is that the login account name? I though AppleID required an email as the login name. And again, no guessing.

Some device with your information on it is sharing the data with the new Mac. Or that data got restored when you initialized the new machine using some sort of Migration assistance.

Can we, here, guess what that sharing device is? Probably not unless you want to tell us every device you and everybody in your immediate network has, how they are configured, backed up, connected, etc., and even then it's still unlikely we can sort it out. You can, however, maybe get a hint by adding a bogus name to each device, with a different bogus name for each device and then see which bogus name appears on the new Mac. PITA, but if the sync is still in place, that will expose it. And if there is NO sync and none of the bogus items appear, then you will know that it came from your original setup steps.

 

[PGB1]

I don't know what that means. By "name" is that the login account name?

Sorry, I didn't explain well. By "Name", I meant the Apple ID or Apple Account name.
The old computer calls it "Apple ID". The new- "Apple Account".

I thought AppleID required an email as the login name.

I apologize, The old computer did have an e-mail address associated with it. That address isn't on the new computer (which has a different, brand new e-mail address).

some sort of Migration assistance

Nope- no migration assistance, The two computers have never met. No cord, no WiFi data transfer, no nuthin'.. Just manually entered data on the new one.

Can we, here, guess what that sharing device is? Probably not unless you want to tell us every device you and everybody in your immediate network has, how they are configured, backed up, connected, etc.

Both computers do use the same router networks and the same ISP. And, both have some of the same e-mail addresses. Maybe it was Google, as Bob & Rod mentioned.

You can, however, maybe get a hint by adding a bogus name to each device, with a different bogus name for each device and then see which bogus name appears on the new Mac.

That's a cool idea!

if the sync is still in place, that will expose it. And if there is NO sync and...

Nothing is set up to sync- unless there's something that I don't about. I was as careful as I could be not to let anything sync. I wanted the new Mac to be a fresh start. I haven't even moved documents, photos and such over yet.

The crazy part is that Reminders and Calendar on the old computer are not on any Google account, nor are they synced to iCloud. They just sit there locally on the computer. Somehow it got figured out that both computers are mine.

Conversely, my wife's iPad uses the same ISP and the same router networks. We have some of the same e-mail addresses on our devices. Yet my Calendar Events & Reminders have never appeared on her iPad nor have hers (if any) appeared on either of my computers.

But..
The Contacts app has a "My Card" on each computer. Both have one matching e-mail address in the list of addresses. (Each has two.) I wonder if that's the connection, which would not be good if I had a company with several computers and each had the same address in each one's My Card.

A Grand Technomystery!

 

[MacInWin]

Nothing is set up to sync- unless there's something that I don't about. I was as careful as I could be not to let anything sync. I wanted the new Mac to be a fresh start. I haven't even moved documents, photos and such over yet.

Apple defaults things to sync. You have to turn most of the off if you don't want them.

But basically your situation is impossible to acheive as you have described it. Apple doesn't guess, and doesn't merge accounts unless you ask for it. You say you have not done anything to this new machine except to start it and establish a brand new Apple Account that has nothing in common with your old AppleID and yet somehow it has your old data on it. And that is just not possible to do.

So, either you have left something out or we are misunderstanding.

 

[PGB1]

Apple defaults things to sync. You have to turn most of the off if you don't want them.

I turned them all off when I set up the computer- unless I missed one that I don't know about.

Apple defaults things to sync. You have to turn most of the off if you don't want them.

But basically your situation is impossible to acheive as you have described it. Apple doesn't guess, and doesn't merge accounts unless you ask for it. You say you have not done anything to this new machine except to start it and establish a brand new Apple Account that has nothing in common with your old AppleID and yet somehow it has your old data on it. And that is just not possible to do.

So, either you have left something out or we are misunderstanding.

But it happened.

So, either you have left something out or we are misunderstanding.

You understand what happened: Calendar & Reminders from the old computer showed up on the new one by magic.

I have not purposefully left anything out. I can't think of anything else to add to help figure this out.

 

[MacInWin]

Well, the problem is unsolvable. Good luck with the new machine.