[Brian]

Hi all,

I have a question about the mail app and address book. When I receive an email from someone who is in my address book, the FROM field shows the name of the sender that (i assume) the sender configured with their email address. It does NOT use the name I put in for that associated email address in my address book. For example, lets say I have an entry in my address book for John Doe, with an email address of johndoe@xyz.com. If I were to compose an email, it would show up as "John Doe". But when I receive an email from johndoe@xyz.com, I see either "johndoe@xyz.com" or something else (maybe "johndoe") in the FROM field. In other words, Mail does not take the incoming email address and associate it with my address book entry.

I'm fairly certain that it's not a misconfiguration issue on my part, because I recently did a clean install of Tiger, and I still have the problem. In addition, I have several email address i use in mac mail and it does it no matter which email address someone sends an email to. Also, I have a .mac email account. I sync my email and address book with my .mac account. If I view my emails via the .mac webmail site, it DOES associate my inbox emails with my address book. But inside the mail.app it does not.

I know this sounds silly.... it just bothers me... Is there a way to fix this?

[JLL]

It shows the name that the sender has in his or her e-mail app.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by JLL 

It shows the name that the sender has in his or her e-mail app.

Correct. Is it possible to override this and show the name that I have in my address book?

[Mithras]

Hmmm, I dunno. But if you've added a photo to your address book entry, that's a good way to verify that Mail is correctly identifying the email as from that person.

Personally, it amazes me that Mail doesn't have a simple "show emails to & from this person" interface.