Managing Address Book / Contacts

This isn't complete, but it gives a quick outline of how to use Address Book. For further info, use the Help menu.

Organization

Address Book is a separate program from Mail, but both work together; when you address an email message, Mail consults with Address Book to retrieve addresses.

Address Book maintains a collection of "cards" for people.

Display

The middle panel of the Address Book window lists people's names. When you select someone's name in the middle panel, the right panel shows the details for their card. The left panel shows groups, which let you send messages to multiple people.

Adding An Address Card

You may add a card for a person in two ways: from scratch, or from an email message.

To create a card from scratch, go to Address Book.

1. Choose File > New Card. This creates a blank card.

2. Edit the card fields as desired.

3. Click the edit button at the bottom of the card panel to turn off edit mode.

To create a card from an existing email message, you do this from within Mail.

1. While viewing the person's email message (or simply highlighting it in the list of messages),

2. Choose Message > Add Sender to Address Book

Mail will cause Address Book to automatically create a card for the person. Note that you may still wish to edit the card, since it will only contain the person's name and email address..

Editing a Card

1. Highlight a name in the center panel with one click.

2. Click the Edit button below the card in the right panel. You may now edit the contents of the fields in the card. You can also change the label for a field (e.g. work, home, etc.)

Adding or Removing Card Fields

When in edit mode, you'll see red and blue + and - buttons near the fields. Clicking "+" will add another field of the same type (e.g. adding a new phone number below the existing fields). Clicking the "-" lets you delete a field.

Note that adding/deleting a field only applies to the current card, not to everyone.

Deleting a Card

Highlight the person's name in the middle panel and press the delete key.

Groups

A group is a subset of all the cards in your Address Book. The group All is always there. If you highlight All, the center panel displays everyone.

Suppose you were to create another group, say, Friends. This group might have a half-dozen names that you send messages to all at once.

Note that when a card is in a group, it still remains in the "All" group. "All" is a special group that's always present.

Creating a Group

1. Choose File > New Group. This creates an empty group called "New Group."

2. Edit the group name as desired by clicking on it and typing.

Adding cards to a group

1. Click the All group to display everyone in the middle panel.

2. Now drag names from the middle panel onto the group name at left. When you see the blue border appear around the group name, let go of the mouse. The name will be added to the group.

Deleting a card from a group

1. Click the group to display its cards in the middle panel.

2. Press the delete key. You will now be asked whether to remove the card from the group (the usual thing), or whether to delete the person completely from your Address Book (unlikely). Answer appropriately.

Deleting a Group

1. Highlight the group with a single click and press the delete key. Note that deleting a group does not delete the individual cards. They remain in the Address Book; just the group goes away.

Mailing to a Group

Just type the group name in the message's "To:" field, and Mail will fill in all the names.