Mail keeps a list of all the email addresses for people you have emailed.

It doesn’t discriminate. Even the ones you typed in incorrectly get stored and will pop up in Mail’s auto-complete drop-down menu for ever after. That’s annoying and it slows you down.

It’s Spring in Australia, so I’ve been spring cleaning Mail (See “Spring cleaning to regain disk space”).

Cleaning out the Previous Recipients list is part of the drill. It’s a good idea to do this from time to time, not only to clean out the duds, but also because:

1. Apple Mail’s Junk Filter will not mark an email as junk if it comes from an address in your Previous Recipients list. Along with the Address Book, it functions as a de facto “white list”. Keeping it up to date helps Mail to find junk better
2. It’s quite fun to go through the list and wonder who all these people are that you have emailed at least once.

You can find it under the Windows menu.

It presents you with a list of the names, email addresses and the date of the last email sent:

I cleaned out 53 addresses this time around. I’m not sure if it actually speeds Mail up, but it feels faster and the annoying mistakes no longer appear in the drop-down list for me to wade through. mail.app, apple mail, previous recipients, spring cleaning, productivity, tips, junk

Boris Anthony has posted some mocked-up screenshots of features he would like to see in Mail.app and iCal that bring the two apps closer together.

He suggests some “smart lists” based on Mail’s Previous Recipients list, a Contextual Menu feature in iCal that would provide lists of all the files and emails created on a particular day and a calendar widget to sit in the bottom of Mail.app’s Mailbox Drawer.

The next version of MailTags will already bring greater integration between Mail.app and iCal. Boris’ ideas would bring them even closer together.

Check them out. What do you think?ical, mail.app, apple mail, mashup, new features, Previous Recipients, integrating

On MacWorld Joe Kissell provides a list of 34 software tweaks that will speed up your Mac.

Mail.app gets a speed bump from reducing the size of your mailboxes, spring-cleaning the Previous Recipients list, reducing the frequency of mail-checks and by adjusting your IMAP settings.

iCal gets faster if you weed out old appointments and events.

You might also want to try rebuilding Mail.app’s database, which worked a treat for me.mail.app, apple mail, ical, mailboxes, IMAP, previous recipients, mail-check, tips, envelope index

It’s a quiet time with not much to blog. So I entertained myself by spring cleaning my Previous Recipients list.

Apple’s tech note on how to keep your Previous Recipients list up-to-date is one of my Top Five Apple Tech Notes for Mail Users.

You can find the list by selecting “Previous Recipients” from Mail’s Window menu.

It’s a good idea to go through the list from time to time because:

1. It stores incorrectly typed addresses and keeps suggesting them via Mail.app‘s auto-complete feature. That can be a pain.
2. It stores every address for every email you have ever sent, even addresses that people haven’t used for years. Do yourself a favour: Clean out the old ones.
3. Apple Mail‘s Junk Filter will not mark an email as junk if it comes from an address in your Previous Recipients list. Along with the Address Book, it functions as a de facto “white list“. Keeping it up to date helps Mail to find junk better
4. It’s quite fun to go through the list and wonder who all these people are that you have emailed at least once. It’s certainly more fun than spring-cleaning the house.