Learn to view and manage the Previous Recipients list and make your email sending more efficient.

Window Menu

Have you noticed in most applications there is a menu called Window that appears to the left of Help? In multi-window apps, this is one way to access other open windows. Some applications also have additional commands for special windows associated with the app.

Previous Recipients

In the elusive Window menu of Mail, there is an item called Previous Recipients, which reveals a window like the one shown above. You can see when you last sent to a given address and what name was associated with it, if any.

There are two key components of the listings:

  1. Email addresses to which you have previously sent email
  2. Email addresses that are in your Contacts (card icon shown left)

Add or Remove

There are two actions you can do with these entries:

  1. Add to Contacts
  2. Remove From List (or press Delete)

Many folks keep a dedicated list of people with whom they stay in touch and/or to store contact information generally. These are your contacts and you can also find them listed in the Contacts application.

In Previous Recipients, you can also search for old, defunct, or other addresses you no longer wish to use and remove them from the list. This prevents them from being suggested when you compose an email.

If you send a lot of email, you could easily have thousands of previous recipients. Mail is pretty smart about suggesting contacts or addresses to which you’ve sent recently. However, you can still make the application more efficient by shortening the list.