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Posted By: ryck Apple Mail - Restricting Recipient Choices - 12/20/19 10:14 PM
Today I sent an email that accidentally went to the wrong person. I had typed the same three letters I always type for the intended recipient but, this time Apple mail scoured my Inbox and used the address of a person who was in a list of CCs on an old email. Although we have a common interest I don't know this person, so they are not in my Contacts. And, of course, they are not in Previous Recipients.

How do I instruct Mail only to select from my Contacts or Previous Recipients when it's auto-filling?
With your eyeballs? tongue

I don't think what you want is possible otherwise.

And I while I wonder why auto-fill put that person at the top of the list, I'll note that the names that come up at the top of mine change, seemingly arbitrarily, and I've emailed the wrong person more than once, although not as grievously as in your instance.
Posted By: ryck Re: Apple Mail - Restricting Recipient Choices - 12/21/19 09:39 AM
Originally Posted By: artie505
With your eyeballs? tongue

Of course, and I'll take the mea culpa on that one. However, it would be good to be able to tell the software: "Don't go poking around my drive looking for opportunities to create the potential for an error."
Originally Posted By: ryck
However, it would be good to be able to tell the software: "Don't go poking around my drive looking for opportunities to create the potential for an error."

Second the motion!

The ability to set some sort of parameters would be nice.
Originally Posted By: artie505
The ability to set some sort of parameters would be nice.

That ability is already in Mail. Between Junk Mail Behavior options and Rules with a little (maybe a lot) thought you should be able to create a fairly sophisticated custom set of behaviors for handling junk mail (a..k.a. spam). Unfortunately AOL may get in line ahead of Mail. I looked at AOL's instructions for handling spam, and it appears that it is geared toward using the webmail interface but it might be possible to pretty much turn their spam filtering off and let Mail do the heavy lifting.
Posted By: ryck Re: Apple Mail - Restricting Recipient Choices - 12/21/19 07:21 PM
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Between Junk Mail Behavior options and Rules with a little (maybe a lot) thought you should be able to create a fairly sophisticated custom set of behaviors for handling junk mail (a..k.a. spam).

i do use Rules to control unwanted emails, and have done so for many years. However, the issue isn't about spam.

The problem is that Mail auto-loaded an email address (in an email that was being composed) but the email address was not derived from either being in my Contacts or my Previous Recipients list. The software looked around and located a name in the CC list of an old email and loaded it. As a result, the email was accidentally sent to the wrong person.

What I would like to be able to do is: Instruct Apple Mail not to auto-load any email address that does not already reside either in my Contacts or in the Previous Recipients list.
That sounds like a very valuable feature but it may have to fall into the category of a Mail Feature Request.
Posted By: ryck Re: Apple Mail - Restricting Recipient Choices - 12/24/19 01:31 PM
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
That sounds like a very valuable feature but it may have to fall into the category of a Mail Feature Request.

Done.
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