A little housekeeping in Apple Mail.
If you use Mail, you know that it looks up addressees and displays a menu of possible matches as you type. So if you type in John, it’ll look up all the people with those characters in their name or e-mail address.
If you’re sharp, you’ve probably realized that the people who appear on this list aren’t just the people in your Address Book file. They’re also people who you have sent messages to in the past: previous recipients.
Over time, your list of previous mail recipients gets long and awkward. When you attempt to enter an address, unwanted — or perhaps even invalid — addressees appear. Fortunately, you can clear out these old addresses using the Previous Recipients window.
To display the Previous Recipients window, choose Window > Previous Recipients. As you can see, it lists all people you have sent e-mail messages to. Names preceded with a tiny Address Book icon are people in your Address Book file. You can sort the list by any column; just click it.
To remove a recipient, select his or her entry and click the Remove from List button. The entry disappears. Keep in mind that if you remove an entry with an Address Book icon, you do not remove that entry from your Address Book — just from this list.
To add recipient to your Address Book file, select his or her entry and click Add to Address Book. The entry is created in your Address Book and a tiny Address Book icon appears next to the name in the Previous Recipients list.
Page References
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide includes more information about related topics:
- Creating Messages (including addressing messages), page 425
- Replying to messages, page 430
- Adding Address Book Cards, pages 241-242
- Editing Contact Cards, page 243
On October 4, 2008 at 11:52 am, 
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Trever // Mar 10, 2008 at 8:41 am
This doesn’t work, at least not in Mail 3.2 under Leopard 10.5.2 The previous recipients list repopulates itself as soon as you relaunch Mail.
2 Maria Langer // Mar 10, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I just tried this on a Mac running 10.5.2 and it worked as described here. Did you quit Mail and restart it? Don’t know why it isn’t working for you!
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