In mail, how do I print the list of Previous Recipients?

Question

In mail, how do I print the list of Previous Recipients?

I'm using mail in 10.5.4. It works fine for me, including the capability of suggesting email addresses from the Previous Recipients list. But, of course, this runs only on my eMac at home.
I plan to be away for 3 weeks, and will be using email on various folks' computers, by contacting my email server directly (verizon.net). But my email server does not have my Previous Recipients list.
How can I print the Previous Recipients list?
In the Previous Recipients window, I find that I can select a single email address with a mouse click, and select all the recipients (command-a), but the copy command (command-c) does not work.
I've also tried to look at the file:
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBookApplication Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr,
but it is not in a readily viewable text format. The Unix "file" command describes it as an "SQLite database (Version 3)."
Does anyone know how to print a copy of the Previous Recipients, to take with me on vacation?

Thanks

eMac, Mac OS X (10.5.4), G4 1.0 GHz; 1.0 Gbyte RAM

Posted on Sep 5, 2008 8:36 AM

Reply

Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Sep 5, 2008 8:45 AM in response to Jack the Giant Killer

you could add all of those addresses to the address book and print from there.

or you can try taking captures of the previous recipients window and print those. of course, you'll probably have to do this several times.

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 6, 2008 2:34 PM in response to Jack the Giant Killer

This turns out to be more complicated than I had hoped, but it is possible.

The Apple mail program uses a database program available in Unix called “sqlite3.”
The executable is in /usr/bin.
For information about this program, type “man sqlite3” in a terminal window. Also, there is information on the web, at www.sqlite.org.
A friend whose day job is in database administration helped me work this out.

First, go the proper directory in a terminal window:

cd ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

The file of interest is MailRecents-v4abcdmr.

Note that the “file” command describes this as:

file MailRecents-v4abcdmr

MailRecents-v4.abcdmr: SQLite database (Version 3)

sqlite3 MailRecents-v4.abcdmr

SQLite version 3.4.0
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite>

Let’s see the headers:
sqlite> .headers ON

Now, let’s get some information about what’s in this database file:
sqlite> select * from SQLITE_MASTER; /* don’t forget the semicolon */
/* lots of output */

The table ZABCDMAILRECENT is of interest to us. Note that the last 3 columns are called ZLASTNAME, ZFIRSTNAME, and ZEMAIL. We want these from the table, in columns, in filename.txt.

sqlite> .mode columns ZABCDMAILRECENT
sqlite> .width 15 15 36 /* make sure the columns are wide enough */
sqlite> .output filename.txt /* note: no ‘;’ */
sqlite:> select ZLASTNAME, ZFIRSTNAME, ZEMAIL from ZABCDMAILRECENT;
sqlite> .exit

Done. The email names and addresses are now in filename.txt, one per line.

Maybe, someday, someone at Apple will add this capability to mail.

Reply