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Persistent “Previous Recipients” in Mac Mail

Hello everyone! I am very pleased to take a question from John who got in touch with Quantum Tunnel using the form here. John’s favourite scientist is Einstein and his question is as follows:

In Mac mail I cannot delete unwanted email addresses. I have done the routine of deleting all addresses from the previous receiptant list, but when starting a new email unwanted addresses appear.. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, John

John is referring to the solution I provided in this earlier post. Sadly, the list of his lucky friends/colleagues/family (delete as appropriate) he has email recently persists even after clearing the “Previous Recipients” as explained in the post before.

There may be a way to force the clearing of these persistent email address:

  • Quit Mail and Address Book (in case the latter is open)
  • Open a terminal and type the following command:
    • `rm ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr`
  • Log out and back in again
  • Start Mail
  • You may have to clear the “Previous Recipients” list as per the post mentioned above

You should now be able to clear the list. And… In case you were wondering, the file we deleted should be created afresh to start accumulating new “recent recipients” (yay!)

Et voilà!