merging or exporting PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS databases??

hi eric.

thank you. i would like to take advantage of the "more like this" feature. can you point me to where it is exactly? i am missing it.

also, this link is a link to my thread. and while at the time it seemed like a decent solution to this problem, i am realizing that it is not sufficient. what this thread solves is the ability to get email addresses in a sort of /bulk/ way into my Contacts/Address Book database so that each device can autocomplete with the addresses that exist on my two computers (each exists independently).

the issue is that these "bulk loaded via script" email addresses exist in the Contacts/Address Book database in a very dumb way. if you are adding an email address for an existing contact (say one that has a phone number and a street address) you now have TWO listings for this person with one being just an email address. if you happen to have replied to this person's email address on both your laptop and your desktop machine (not so shockingly a very common situation) you now have THREE listings for this person in your contacts with two of them being simply email addresses. this means that when you try and /phone/ them, you hit on their phone number 1 out of 3 chances. of course if you go into the actual group that you have sorted the originally existing contact into you will only have this one contact but most people normally will use the "All Contacts" view a lot and having 3 contacts is a nightmare so i have deleted both folders that previously contained my Previous Recipients. Not so helpfully Mail will still continue to show these Previous Recipients as being synced to Contacts but this is simply another level of troubleshooting for the mac folks to fix.

i have to hope that mac will integrate this database into the iCloud setup so that these two databases not only talk to themselves (they don't) but that they also get ported to my iPhone (they don't) so that i can send emails using this information.

the problem i am trying to solve now (which again i really hope is temporary) - is whether there is anyone out there that has figured out how to manage these issues over a longer period of time.

right now i am just BULK DUMPING /all/ my Previous Recipients into Contacts and then deletings, sorting, manually moving email addresses to existing phone number contacts etcetera. this is pretty much a nightmare since in a lot of cases contacts are getting added twice (once from the laptop and once from the desktop) - and THEN i have to sort these added Previous Recipients into GROUPS.

what i am asking is - once this is done, what is the method for continuing to maintain the Contacts versus Previous Recipients databases?

More of the same?!

THANKS

hi. OK. thanks.

i actually get matches based upon the /title/ of the post when posting so i wonder if the "more like this" is simply a repetition of this information.

anyway, have you actually used the Previous Recipients? i mean, have you used it from two computers? the reason i am posting on this is that there have not been any answers on the topic and syncing with iCloud has nothing to do with the topic.

maybe you have found some documentation on this that i have not read?

are you saying that Mail > Window > Previous Recipients syncs via iCloud based upon something you have tested or something you have read or are you guessing that maybe this will help?

cheers

thanks as always for the great help eric.

> The previous recipients list does not sync, not via iTunes and not via iCloud.

thank you.

i wonder if anyone has been able to avoid the problem that it doesn't even (apparently) know what is happening with the Contacts app on the same computer.

i mean, i just went through and added all my Previous Recipients from both of my machines and i have been spending two days wading through duplicates (among other things).

also, does anyone know what exactly is the correct way to ADD a Previous Recipient to the Contacts app so that the last name and the first name are not backward? i seem to be sorting added Previous Recipients from my two devices on my Contacts App on my Laptop (synced via iCloud) - and /some/ of these added contacts have the first name last name backwards and some don't.

i mean - i am guessing this must be a setting in the Mail Application when they get added from the laptop or the desktop - since when i try to fiddle with setttings in the Contacts app this does not fix anything...?!

hi csound.

OK. fair enough.

but Previous Recipients' stated goal in Mail is to automatically capture names and email addresses. it is going to be a real drag to do this via sorting through all my mail and manually adding these to Contacts. plus - there is a specific feature in Previous Recipients that allows you to add them to Contacts. it is just that the implementation is so weak that it i am /almost/ thinking about printing out screenshots of these two databases and adding them MANUALLY.

i mean, the point of using Previous Recipients is to allow Mail to autocomplete and if these are not shared among my three devices or if i don't make the effort to put them all together in Contacts then i have Mail autocompleting with three different databases on three different devices which is really inconvenient and confusing.

for instance, when i want to send a mail to someone on my phone i literally have to look their name up in a Mail search in my IMAP mail and copy the address or hit reply or whatever and if it has been archived or if Mail Search on the iPHone has a hard time finding it (or if i can't remember the exact spelling or something) then i am totally out of luck.

hi csound. thanks.

there is a real problem with the implementation of Mail vis a vis Contacts. it is really problematic. for instance, only on Mountain Lion can i sort my contacts by "Not In a Group" using a smart folder. i cannot do this on my mac pro which can only go up to Lion. this means that any time i want to find a contact that i have added while on my phone (you cannot add a Group to a contact added on your phone) i have to go into my laptop once in awhile and manually sort these.

also, even the method that you point out (thank you BTW) means that i still end up with a contact sort of dumped into contacts which i then have to sort.

but for my needs i can't determine in advance whether an incoming mail from someone was already or not already added to my contact database. i mean, i COULD do this if they would add a little doohicky to the incoming email address but i don't have a computer in my head that will let me know this. this is why i have to rely on Previous Recipients. one other problem with previous recipients is also that once you do ADD the contact to Contacts, if you decide to delete the contact from Contacts then Previous Recipients has no way of knowing this and it still shows it as added.

i mean, this whole thing is a total mess. i can't even add the contact without Contacts or Mail mixing up which is the first name and which is the last name (or the settings are so confusing i can't figure it out).

but this is not the point. the point is that I AM using iCloud to sync my contacts and i have one database for this set of contacts. the problem is that Previous Recipients cannot sync but also that ADDING THE CONTACTS from Previous Recipients to the Contacts app is so poorly implemented and poorly thought out that even after hacking my way through this (i am just about to sit down tonight to sort hundreds of these into a GROUP so that they don't just fall willy-nilly into only the All My Contacts section) - that - well that i need some help from someone that has worked with this functionality in the real world to figure out how i am going to MAINTAIN this database interaction.

right now this /appears/ to involve adding new Previous Recipients that show up on both computers in the Previous Recipients database to Contacts - and then manually deleting one in the case of duplicates and manually fixing the name order (in most cases) - and then adding to a Group. this is a major pain and not worthy of any functional sync that i have ever run into.

all those are legitimate issues assuming that i can't simply remember that a contact coming in has not been added to my database or assuming that i am not going to look up each and every incoming email address and cross check it against my Contacts database.

i mean, this is ostensibly what the start of this functionality is for i would have to assume i am just hoping someone can give me workarounds now and that they are going to FIX THIS in the short term.

is there even a suggestions section for Contacts on the suggestion site? i could not even find this...

hey.csound. hi. thanks.

i think i am not being clear.

Previous Recipients is a database that exists on my two computers somewhere in the Mac Mail information. if you check the right box in preferences then every time i respond to an email this person (presumably somewhat important) gets added to this database if they were not already added.

there is no way to access this database or otherwise export it except by /viewing/ it in Window > Previous Recipients. this is how one way mail autocompletes when i try and send a mail. but it does so with two different databases on two different machines. the other way it autocompletes is using the Contacts (ML)/Address Book (Lion).

so unless you ADD the Previous Recipients to your Contacts you have two separate databases that Mail uses to autocomplete and you have NO database (except your Contacts database where i store mainly phone numbers).

so what i am trying to do is to ADD the Previous Recipients to my Contacts/Address Book so that these email addresses are on all three of my devices.

Contacts syncs to all devices using iCloud.

Previous Recipients does not which is why i am trying to navigate the hinky "add this Previous Recipient to Contacts/Address Book" functionality. this is why i am posting - to see if someone is doing this better than i have been able to find it to work.

my point about On My Mac is that i have hundreds of contacts and if i just dump them all into the On My Mac i cannot find them. i also cannot tell when looking at a contact if it is in a group. so i have to create a Smart Group in ML that shows me all my contacts that are not in a Group. does that make sense? if i am viewing On My Mac - oh, maybe i misused this earlier and i mean "All My Contacts"? anyway, the point i am trying to make there is that Contacts does not do a very good job of showing me when my contacts are in a group (wouldn't it be nice to just show me which group/s it is in when i look at the card?!) and when i go through the Previous Contacts manual sync up procedure this issue is simply compounded....

i mean, i keep asking this question and no one seems to have figured out how to use this functionality in a way that makes sense - basically because it is a very unintelligent database/functionality at the moment.

and there is no way to give feedback on it that i am aware of...