how can i paste a column of email addresses from an excel spreadsheet into a Mail message To: window

Mail now needs a "," (comma) separator.

In Excel, just go the the next col and use the formula: =A1&","

...and then paste that col into mail

Thanks Tony. Helped me too!!

That helps, but it is only a "workaround". Why did Apple remove the longstanding previous behavior that was so useful? And will they put it back in. Even your sugestion adds several steps to our workflow that we have been using for years and that is not acceptable.

kbacon wrote:

And will they put it back in.

Maybe, but don't count on it.

Even your sugestion adds several steps to our workflow that we have been using for years and that is not acceptable.

There are other ways, If you would post your workflow, instead of complaining, maybe someone can help

Now Tony, I know you can't hear my tone on a forum post but I was not complaining, simply stating facts 😉. This change brought several people in my office to a grinding halt in a long established workflow that is really rather simple (and I thought was already assumed from the original post above 😕):

1) Select a set of records in FileMaker Pro 12 and export only their e-mail addresses as a CSV file.

2) Open that CSV file in Excel.

3) Copy the column of e-mail address.

4) paste into the appropriate recipient field in Mail.

5) Send

If I were to complain it would be about Apple's typically opaque approach to updates. There is no granular explanation of why changes were made or even "what" changes were made.

Complaining is futile since Apple is Apple and is unlikely to change, but sometimes it is cathartic to "shout into the void" 😠.

I had thought about doing something with a formula in Excel and your suggestion was simple and helpful🙂. Again, however, it is only a workaround for a long established helpful behavior that Apple has inexplicably broken/removed in Mavericks Mail😢.

I, and the other posters here, would love to have the capability back rather than have to add previously unneeded steps to our workflows.

Ultimately we may add scripting steps to the FileMaker side to export the address lists with commas inserted already if Apple ends up having permanently removed this feature.

That workflow could be made a lot simpler

Why do you need to copy the .csv file into excel?

Try this in Automator:

1) Open Automator and select: Application

2) Select Action "Ask for Finder Items"

(not necessary, but edit prompt to: Select .CSV File)

3) Select Action "Filter Finder Items" (to csv files)

4) Select Action: "Run Shell Script" (select: Pass As Agruments)

enter: sed 's/$/,/' $1 | pbcopy

Here's what it will look like

Now, all you have to do is:

1) Select a set of records in FileMaker Pro 12 and export only their e-mail addresses as a CSV file.

2) Run that Automator App just created and select the CSV file

3) Paste into the appropriate recipient field in Mail.

4) Send

Thanks for the suggestion Tony. I was hopeful that would provide us an even easier workflow!

However, I set up my Automator Application just like you specified and it doesn't seem to do anything to the addresses. They simply get pasted in with quotes around them and spaces between them, no periods?

I did a little quick research on the sed substitute command and found that your suggested shell script was missing the "g" flag. I also substitued a quotation mark (") in place of the $ that you had in your script. Once I made those changes it works perfectly and provides the e-mails formatted as needed for pasting into mail!

Here is the modified shell script that I used:

sed 's/"/,/g' $1 | pbcopy

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. This makes things almost as simple as before. In the past we had the following steps:

1. Run script in FileMaker Pro (this found the appropriate records, exported the e-mail addresses to CSV and automatically opened it in Excel)

2. Select and copy the column of addresses.

3. Switch to mail and paste.

Now we simply:

1. Export the CSV.

2. Run the Automator application

3. Select the created CSV in the dialog box

4. Switch to mail and paste.

Now if I can set up automator to monitor the desktop and automatically run when an "untitled.csv" file is created . . . that is my next task!

[UPDATE] I set it up as Folder Action associated with the Desktop folder and dropped the first "Ask for Finder Items" command and Boom! All I have to do is export and then paste!

Message was edited by: kbacon

kbacon wrote:

I did a little quick research on the sed substitute command and found that your suggested shell script was missing the "g" flag. I also substitued a quotation mark (") in place of the $ that you had in your script. Once I made those changes it works perfectly and provides the e-mails formatted as needed for pasting into mail!

I incorrectly tested on a plain text file that had 1 emai per line, and no quotes, i.e. tony@anywhere.com ("$" is end-of-line)

Nice that you were able to de-bug it.

Now if I can set up automator to monitor the desktop and automatically run when an "untitled.csv" file is created . . . that is my next task!

You can create the Automator as a Folder Action, but I wouldn't use the Desktop Folder (although I guess you could).

(The reason why I wouldn't use the Desktop is that the Automator will run whenever any file is placed on the Desktop)

You should be able to create an Auomator Service, this way you can highlight the csv file and right-click to run

Yes, that might be cleaner to set it up as an Automator service. That way the action is only initiated intentionally.

I suppose the folder action is alright as long as I don't mind it constantly monitoring my Desktop? I am not sure how much processing overhead that entails?

Does the csv file need to be saved to the Desktop?

Can you save it to a dedicated folder?

...or have 2 Folder Actions. The 1st monitors the Desktop, if the csv file is there, move to another folder, then have the other Folder Action run? (you can even have the 2nd Folder Action move the csv file to the Trash when done).

The processing overhead is minimal

I would use a Service, but that's just a personal preference.

kbacon wrote:

Now we simply:

1. Export the CSV.

2. Run the Automator application

3. Select the created CSV in the dialog box

4. Switch to mail and paste.

You can add the Action "New Mail Message" (with the option "Ignore this actions input) and skip #4

Hello,

Forgive my Excel ignorance, but when I paste

=A1&","

into the column adjacent to my list of email addresses, it only gives me the 'corrected' email address + coma for that row. I've tried to select the entire empty column to paste the formula into, but excel doesn't seem to function that way.

How would I get excel to generate the entire list of emails + the comma?

Thanks!

AJ

I added the action and it opens a new mail message but I still have to issue the paste command manually. Is this the expected behavior?

kbacon wrote:

I added the action and it opens a new mail message but I still have to issue the paste command manually. Is this the expected behavior?

Yes.