Address Book's Edit>Edit Distribution Lists Command is Disabled

Same thing is happening to me.

I thought it was just me, but I guess not.

same problem here! I'm getting mad!

Ditto

Ditto! It seems to have something to do with iCloud. When I delete the iCloud account on my mac and keep the contacts, when I then go to the Edit menu, I can again edit my distribution list. It seems that the cloud just picks the first email it comes to (or it likes...) if you have multiple emails for a contact. This is a real PAIN!

Same issue here. I sent an email to a Group only to find out my email did not go to the default email addresses, so I tried "Edit Distibrution Lists..." but it's always grayed out. This is a major issue in Address Book, I rely on emailing Groups and most of my Contacts have multiple email addresses like Work, Home, etc.

Same here. I even called apple tech and talked to them about it. They said it defaults to this when using iCloud and MobileMe. I then told them it always worked with MobileMe and of course now that I have swithched to iCloud I'm stuck.

I use this feature all the time for my business. I have no idea what i'm going to do now...

I hope they fix it or it is just one more nail in the coffin of iCloud for me. Loosing iDisk is bad enough...

Same issue. Worked with MobileMe, but not with iCloud. I turned off Contacts in iCloud system preferences, waited until it was then shown as "On My Mac" then got the menu item enabled. Made the changes, went back and turned on Contacts in iCloud preferences, used it but the email selections didn't carry over. So deselected Contacts again in iCloud, and lost ALL my contacts on my Mac. Reselected and merged, then deselected again and there they were. Edited the distribution list again, and while still offline addressed my email, all addresses came in as configured. Then re-merged with iCloud. The emails reverted back, not the ones I selected in the Edit Distribution List. So a waste of time.

Easier if I'd just addressed the email manually, which obviously shouldn't be the case!

Are you serious, Apple? The new address book was bad enough in Lion and now we can't edit distribution lists when synced to iCloud? Address book is cumbersome. I hate having to turn pages back and forth. I need the simple, classic layout with basic functionality restored. Is this too much to ask?

I am having the same problem. When we had MobileMe the edit distribution list worked fine but now it is grayed out and not usable. I am not even sure what is going to be the easiest way to get emails to everyone in the groups now. Does anyone know if this is just a bug that needs to be fixed or if it is going to be permantly like this?

I found a possible solution: I disabled the iCloud account in Address Book's prefs. I was asked if I wanted to keep a copy of the addresses locally on my Mac. YES. (Additionally I unchecked Address Book Sync in the iCloud prefs temporarily.)

The result: Address Book now displays my address groups in the sidebar not filed under "iCloud", but under "local", and the menu item "Edit distributin list …" was active again.

I reactivated the iCloud account (in Address Book) and iCloud synchronisation. Now I have both categories displayed in the sidebar: iCloud and local. (And I have doubled my contacts in the view "All contacts". But I can select a different view, e. g. "All iCloud".)

The menu item remains active. It seems to depend on if addresses are locally stored or not.

Very useful information, Kurt ... thank you!

Just to be sure I understand, does this literally create duplicate vCards in your Address Book? If so, what would happen if you deleted one of each duplicate, i.e., could you keep the "Edit Distribution List" functionality without having duplicated vCards?

Interesting, but for some reason when I deactivate the iCloud account, it doesn't give me an option to keep copy locally, which I would like. So when I deactivate, I have nothing in Address Book.

Burt, remember: I also deactivated Addresses in the iCloud System Preferences. Maybe that triggered the dialog with the question: "Do you want to keep a local copy?"

I am so happy it works again now, I would not like to take the risk. 🙂

But as far as I can see, I have now static local copys of my contacts as well as synchronized contacts in the iCloud. And to me it appears that the menu item is enabled only when there are local contacts in my Address Book.

Ahhh, I missed that. Tried that, and it worked. Thanks for the workaround!