Address book problem - can't clean out old ones

Mail keeps providing addresses for contacts that are either obsolete or irrelevant. Some of these addresses I used once fifteen years ago. I'm not sure where the system is finding these or how I clear them out / turn off the function that finds them. I've cleaned out the "Previous Recipients" window a number of times but that doesn't seem to have any effect. OS is 10.13.6. Any idea? Thanks in advance. / BB



MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 3, 2025 6:49 AM

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Apr 7, 2025 1:10 AM in response to yugojnab

yugojnab wrote:

Not synching to anything as far as I know. See ya! =

Guessing is not productive nor it it helpful in trying to help with Technical Details


The devil is in, this case, in the Details


OP wrote " which I guess means de-linking to those accounts, "


If you do not know for certain if Contacts is using more than one Source


As we do not have direct and physical access to to this machine


It becomes impossable for us to see what you are seeing or not seeing


Suggest re-reading from an earlier posted link


Is Contacts Only using iCloud as the source


Is Contacts using More than one Source to sync, like iCloud + Google + Yahoo, + ??? ?


Only you can answer these questions

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Apr 6, 2025 7:32 AM in response to yugojnab

Gather contacts from all your accounts


The operative wording " All Accounts "


If you keep contacts in other Internet accounts—such as iCloud, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Yahoo!—you can access all of them in Contacts. To add your contacts from an Internet account, just choose Contacts > Add Account, select the account type, then click Continue.

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Apr 6, 2025 10:43 AM in response to Owl-53

Reply appreciated but not mentioned was how to (1) clean out the addresses I don't want (which I guess means de-linking to those accounts, which I don't remember asking for in the first place) (2) ensuring that Mail doesn't keep doing this. Thanks!

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Address book problem - can't clean out old ones

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