AddressBook.data[...] - possible "manual" changes?!?

[stefmit]

Is there any possibility to remove "cached" mail addresses (the ones saved, once an adddress has been used once), that are used for mail address completion, for example? I am concerned about some privacy issues, and I have been able to grep for all addresses I have used - so far - on my new Mac OSX system - since first day I got it. The problem I am having is that this info - unlike any other Unix-based systems I have used - I found it to be stored in binary format, in the AddressBook.data[.beforesave] files, instead of plain text files, thus making me somehow uncomfortable to remove it ("it"=the info) "manually".

I apologize if this is an FAQ - I am still learning my way around a Mac.

TIA,
Stef

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Sure, but you do it through Mail, not through Address Book.

Open up Mail, then select "Previous Recipients" from the "Window" menu. In the window that pops up, you can remove any addresses you don't want.

 

[stefmit]

Sure, but you do it through Mail, not through Address Book.

Open up Mail, then select "Previous Recipients" from the "Window" menu. In the window that pops up, you can remove any addresses you don't want.

That did it - cool - thank you! I gotta get this "plain text files" out of my head

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Yeah, there's still a lot of plain-text config files and what-not that you can edit manually under OS X just like any other UNIX installation, but for the proprietary stuff like Mail and Address Book data, Apple chose to go with a binary format for storage. Glad that helped!