I am running Sonoma 14.2.1 on my Mac. Lately I have noticed that recipients of random emails I've sent (that is, anyone I email, not in my Contacts already) from Mac Mail are being added automatically to Contacts. Anyone know how to turn this off??
iMac 21.5″, macOS 14.2
This is not expected behavior, and yours is the first time I have heard of this happening.
Do you perhaps have a Mail extension or other third party software modification that could do this?
Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.
Are you using Gmail? In which case, there is a setting that you can turn off. See the section “Save contact info when you interact with people” in this Google help page.
fiveft2 wrote:
I am running Sonoma 14.2.1 on my Mac. Lately I have noticed that recipients of random emails I've sent (that is, anyone I email, not in my Contacts already) from Mac Mail are being added automatically to Contacts. Anyone know how to turn this off??
Have not heard this before.
The current stable release of Sonoma including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 14.3 I would start there
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
A SafeBoot Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support will sort many anomalies
Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled.
Login and test. Reboot as normal and test.
you can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple
Well I'll be darned. My telco email was taken over by Gmail a few years ago so in a lot of respects it functions as a Gmail account. I went into my Google account and darned if that wasn't switched on. Why it just started (was switched on) a few months ago, who knows. I will test and see if this is the magic piece.
Thank you!
I don't see anything in there that looks like it could cause this strange behavior...
1) Are you sure that those contacts are actually added to Contacts, and not just "found by Siri" somewhere?
2) Assuming that they are indeed added, how do they show in Contacts? For example, say you send an e-mail
to me@myserver.com, does it create a contact with this for e-mail and named how?
3) If you do the same, while booted in Safe Mode, do you also have it added to your Contacts?
On a side note, I noticed this in the report:
More than one antivirus app - This computer has multiple antivirus apps installed.
Fortunately, these are not some of the very bad ones, but still: I'd uninstall adguard, and keep MalwareBytes but not always running in the background; only run it manually in case you have some reason to (which should be rarely, if ever).
The kind of malware that exists for the mac is one that requires active user participation.
Using the built-in security and a healthy dose of good sense is what is best.
Thank you for the information. My Mac is definitely up to date, and I tried Safe Mode twice. I am still getting the same maddening behaviour - every time I email, the recipient is added to my Contacts, even if they are already there.
I will take your advice and submit a bug report.
Many thanks.
I adjusted the Gmail settings as discussed, however, as of today (May 13 2024) this is still happening. I haven't been organized enough to test whether it does it in Safe Mode.
I'm going to try reinstalling MacOS, which was another suggestion.
Grateful for whatever insight you can provide.
Now on Sonoma 14.4.1.
Yes, added as full Contact, not greyed-out Siri suggestion (although some details are):
You are welcome!
Mac Mail automatically adding all email recipients to Contacts
