Unlike the contact lists in other email clients, Mail.app can’t grab nicknames out of Address Book when auto-completing email addresses.

If your heart is set on using them, or if you have switched over from Eudora and never adjusted to their disappearance, here’s three things you could try:

1. Dan Moren has published a work-around on MacUser that involves creating an Address Book Group titled with the nickname and dropping the contact into the group. Mail.app will them find the nickname and auto-complete the email address.
2. Another option is making that contact into a company with the nickname as the company name and placing the person’s real name underneath:
   

3. Grieve the passing of nicknames for an appropriate period and then get over it. After all, most people with nicknames also have first names that Mail.app can easily find and match. It’s not such a big deal.

UPDATE: As Howard explains in the comments, Quicksilver has no problems with nicknames, so you can use it to start an nickname-friendly email:

mail.app, apple mail, address book, contacts, nicknames, tips, workarounds, group, company

Similar Posts:

• Setting a default email address in Address Book
• Mailboxer: Smart mailboxes for contacts
• Address Book Reports 2.0.6
• JABMenu 1.2: International maps, group emails, more
• Emailing a Smart Group in Address Book

Tags: Address Book, Apple Mail, Apple Mail Tips, company, contacts, group, mail.app, nicknames, workarounds

This entry was posted on Monday, 11th December, 2006 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Address Book, Apple Mail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.