Not so long ago, I’m sure if you started typing a Contacts group name (either smart or dumb) into a new e-mail, that group name would auto-complete and you then had the choice of expanding that name into individual recipients or keeping them invisible.
This no longer happens. In fact I can’t even drag a group name from Contacts into the address field in Mail and have it populate automatically - and I’m sure that was possible.
I now seem to have to go into Contacts, open the group, select and copy all the names, and paste them in.
Is this a feature or a fault? Or is it just me? (and if so how can I remedy it?)
It seems like Apple cripples Mail more every year. Used to be, I could check on financial transactions by searching mail for the amount in question (say, 12.31 or 36.87). Mail no longer responds to these kind of searches so I’ve taken to using HoudahSpot, which works very well.
Of course, the long standing bug of missing “on my Mac” email still exists so I routinely import new email every one or two days into DevonThink Pro, where it safely resides, safe from Apple’s “upgrades.” (EagleFiler also works well)
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the issue. Here on my 12.5 14" MBP when I type in the name of a Contacts group, Mail immediately turns that into a list of addresses of folks in that group.
And in Mail Prefs > Composing I see that I have selected an option “When sending to a group, show all member addresses”. If I turn that off I get the group name in the To: field instead of individual addresses, as expected.
Strange… I just tried this (Monterey 12.4 on an Intel MBA). I typed the name of the group, and it auto-completed, and pressing the right arrow key changed it from the group name to the individual members.
I’ll try updating to 12.5 and see what happens.
Again, strange, because I just tried this. It took a while to complete the search, but I put in the amount of my monthly AppleOne charge and they all appeared from my Archive folder.
Thanks Doug,
I think it might be something screwy with Contacts, or the relationship between Contacts and Mail. I just tried making a new group (‘CAP2’) and dragged the members of my original ‘CAP’ group to it, and lo and behold, it appeared in the e-mail To field as a value. The expand/hide option in Prefs also seems to be working.
But then tried recreating a Smart Group, and that didn’t work in the same way (I’m sure it used to be possible) Do your smart groups auto-complete?
Just ran a test (I don’t use smart groups otherwise) and indeed, typing the name of the smart group in Mail’s To: field doesn’t resolve to addresses, or actually do anything at all for that matter. I’d say that’s a bug worth reporting.
Although, Howard Oakley whom I otherwise trust 100%, has indicated that might just not be worth the trouble in the first place.
I’d say that’s a bug worth reporting.