How can I get back Mail Auto-Complete email addresses?

my iPhoto is now trashing, too. Do a Get Info on ...

/Users/[NAME]/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto/Data/Library/Preferences/com. apple.iPhoto.plist

and see if the details list the Where and Original as the same path. If so, this might be your trashed link for iPhoto. (the original should be over in /Users/[NAME]/Library/Preferences)

I say might be because this hasn't fixed mine. I also found and repaired the link you mentioned in your post.

Incidentially, I am also having these types of problems with MS Office and am reinstalling that once or twice a week in addition to the Mail links getting trashed and now iPhoto.

I even went so far as to do a clean install using the migration assistant to bring back my user folder. That worked great for about 10 days and then it all started happening again.

If ANYONE has ANY IDEA as to what is causing all this misery for everyone then PLEASE SHARE. Thanks.

ha ... there are tons of damaged symlinks in that iphoto folder (/Users/[NAME]/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto/)

i just trashed the whole thing (doubl-check that you are trashing the one in Containers only!) and now it's working

crazy

I've been trashing the com.apple.mail folder, but just tried the steps posted earlier in this thread:

$ cd ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Application\ Support

$ rm AddressBook

$ ln -s ../../../../../Application\ Support/AddressBook AddressBook

and it also worked.

Trashing the folder was solving the problem only for a short time. Will now see if the terminal command works any better...

Thanks so much, Drew!

Worked for me too! Thanks Drew for the simple explanation for how to find the hidden folder.

thanks Drew, totally solved my problem as well

This solved my issue too!

I was a bit affraid I would loose mailbox preferences, but for now only the folder view disappeared and had to be switched on again.

Thanks!

This totally fixed my issue too! So glad to have that back. I've be looking at other solutions, but none made sense, nor worked. This was such an easy fix. Just have to reinstate my preferences, which only takes a few minutes of time. So well worth the pain though.

I'm having similar problems, but my setup is different:

I've relocated the AddressBook folder to an encrypted image, which I mount after loging in (I'm encrypting selected pieces of my system in this way).

The AddressBook symlink in Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/

looks perfectly allright: AddressBook -> ../../../../../Application Support/AddressBook

However, since AddressBook in Application Support itself is a symbolic link:

AddressBook -> /Volumes/Encrypted/AddressBook,

that somehow messes things up. A symbolic link to a symbolic link should work?

The address book itself has no problems finding the contacts.

Even if I replace the link in the com.apple.mail container with a direct link to /Volumes/Encrypted/AddressBook, it doesn't work.

The ONLY thing that works is if the real AddressBook folder is put back in it's place.

Everything else (including removing the com.apple.mail folder before restarting Mail,

just makes the autocomplete show that spinner at the end of the address line.

And is there a button for manually inserting addresses? No.

This is very annoying. I just upgraded from Snow Leopard on a different computer, where it was

no sandboxing, and now problems.

Any further suggestions, anyone?

DrewSchatt wrote:

I was having the same problem, and I found that by removing the entire com.apple.mail folder from ~/Library/Containers, that fixed the issue (and starting Mail back up - I'd quit it before removing that folder).

I had to reset all my preferences for viewing and so forth, and it lost all open window positions, but no big deals for either of those (all preferences related to accounts and filters/rules and so on remained just fine).

Hope that this helps someone else.

I had to add another step. After following the above instructions I got no improvement in that matter. So I tried to investigate deeper. I KNEW it has something to the AddressBook (contacts). First I exported (backed up) the addresses from within the Contacts application. Then I got to the ~/Library/Containers (BTW - to get there be in the finder window and while holding the ALT key roll the Go menu to see the Library menu item appeared - this is the Library in you user folder). Now I went the path (inside the Containers folder!): com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and deleted all the content of that folder (AddressBook folder). After that treatment I was able to go the old way of auto-complete the addresses :-)