How do I edit a name on Ichat?

Right click or hold control and click on the person in iChat. Select "Show Info" and go to the address card tab.

Or you can do it directly in your address book.

Ben

From your Contact/Buddy List find the contact, choose the name of the friend you want to edit so it is hilighted, from iChat pulldown menu choose: Buddies > Show Info > Address Card Tab...

Should be able to edit the most basic info for your friend/buddy from here.

➕ℹ

Hi,

Some extra info.

When adding First Name, Last Name details when adding a Buddy, iChat checks with the Address Book and adds them if they don't exist.

If they do exist in the Address Book already then ichat will fade the Buddy Pic in and out then disappear not even adding the Buddy to the Off Line Group/parts of your list (You may need to Show Off Line Buddies from the View menu)

If it is a Screen Name that is an extra one for someone who already exists in the Address Book use the blue Arrow looking mark next to Last Name and it wil expand a link to the Address Book to "Choose a Card"

As has been hinted at you can also Edit someone's Card in the Address Book and add the new Screen Name.

7:31 PM Monday; April 18, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

is it possble to change a contact name without adding it to the address book? I just want my iPhone contacts in the address book, I mostly use iChat for business and don't want all my contacts in messing with my personal contacts in my address book.

The only reason i want to change it is because i don't want my contacts to to appear 'johnsmith323' but to appear 'John Smith'

HI,

In iChat (where this Thread Started) Buddies appear in your Buddy Lists(s) as the Screen Name untill your Add First Name, Last Name info or link them to an existing Card in the Address Book.

This then allows them to appear in the Buddy list as Joe Smith (Aplogies to all Joe Smiths).

If the only info you have about them is their iChat name then it may not appear as an Email in the card in whcih case it will tend not to show as one in Mail if you are searching for a Contact.

(Of course there are some exceptions to this with some Active Emails from @mac.com and most @me.com names that are also active emails).

I do think Messages and it's link with the Address Book needs to separate out FaceTime Favourites, iMessage IDs from plain emails and from iChat email looking IDs.

(I Just edited the Template and sorted some of mine but Messages is not picking up on them yet (I Am hopeful on a restart) )

10:30 PM Sunday; February 19, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Hi Ralph,

Thanks for your response. Just to confirm there is no way to change the name of a contact in iChat without iChat adding it to the address book? When I change the name of a contact by right clicking and editing their first and surname iChat adds a new entry into the address book- when I delete this from AB it resets the contact back to their name.

As mentioned above it just means that all of my personal and business contacts are mixed in to one address book which is then synced to my iPhone- can get quite confusing.

Hi,

I must admit I tend to run some Contacts and Buddies with multiple Cards (Various and variation on real names)

so that I keep some email separate for iChat or Screen Names separate.

We found early on you could add several Screen Names to one Address Book Card and iChat would show the person as On line if they were logged in. This could be AIM Express or similar with one of those names when in fact they could not chat.

Another point of confusion is that fact that some @mac.com names are not in fact Emails (And with the exception of Google and Facebook most Jabber IDs are not either).

Certianly for the Apple type names the Address Book will put them in the Email Section rather than the Screen Name/IM service name spot and can lead to the need to move them about. (If they are not going to be emails that Mail can use).

At present I am having issues syncing the template I am trying in the Address Book on my Mac with that in my Phone.

It has reverted all contacts back to the one on the phone.

I am expecting that when I have sorted this and then restarted it my be picked up by Messages so I can see the titles I have put in the Template (iMessage, Facetime as Custom for email Home and Work)

I do have one buddy at least at the moment how has several email they use only one of which I know to be a Valid ID they use in iMessage/FaceTime (And in fact not for mail)

But their plain email that is email only shows up as a possible iMessage contact in Contacts in Messages.

As this Buddy already has 3 cards to keep other test account separate I am reluctant to create more.

I expect we may have to create Groups within the Address Book for iMessage names as at present Messages does not give them a separate "Buddy list"

At present I can not see a way around this.

11:23 PM Sunday; February 19, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Hey,

After searching Google for an hour and a half i finally managed to get an answer.

The trick is to create an alias from that contact via Google and it syncs down to iChat.

Hi,

Great.

Glad you found an answer

11:38 PM Sunday; February 19, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously