Using Address Books

About Address Books

Address books store email addresses and contact information for people you typically send mail to, such as colleagues, friends, and family. &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups provides you with two address books: the Personal Address Book and the Collected Addresses—and you can create additional address books as well. You can also import address books from other mail programs and previous versions of &brandShortName;. The contents of these address books are stored locally on your hard disc.

Your address book may also list email addresses from an LDAP directory, which is located on an LDAP directory server. The directory server stores email addresses of people that are not included in your locally-stored address books. The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an industry-standard method for accessing Internet or intranet directory services such as corporate address books.

Personal Address Book

Use the Personal Address Book to add specific names of your choice. You can create mailing lists and edit individual address entries.

Collected Addresses

By default, the Collected Addresses automatically collects the email addresses contained in outgoing mail messages. Addresses from outgoing messages are stored in the Collected Addresses as soon as you click Send.

LDAP Directory (if available)

An LDAP directory (also known as an address lookup service) stores email addresses of recipients who are not in your locally-stored address books. LDAP directories offer you access to large, centrally maintained databases of email addresses, which is especially useful with address autocompletion.

Automatic address collection is enabled by default. To change automatic address collection settings, begin in the Mail window:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Mail & Newsgroups category, click Addressing. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Mail & Newsgroups to expand the list.)
3. Under Email Address Collection, select Add email addresses to my and choose whether you want:
   • Personal Address Book.
   • Collected Addresses.
4. Click OK.

Opening the Address Book Window

To open the Address Book window:

• Open the Window menu and choose Address Book, or click the Address Book icon in the lower-left corner of any &brandShortName; window.

  	Address Book icon

Changing the Address Book Window Display

To customise how the Address Book window and the cards are displayed:

1. Open the Window menu and choose Address Book. You see the Address Book window.
2. In the Address Book window, open the View menu and choose from the following display options:
   • Choose Show/Hide, and then select the item you wish to untick (hide) or tick (show).
   • Choose Show Name As, and then select how you want card names displayed (first/last, last/first, or Display Name).
   • Choose Sort by, and then select a sort option.

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Adding Entries to Your Address Books

You can use any of the following ways to add entries to your address books:

• Click a name in the From or recipient fields (for example, To or Cc) in a message you've received, and then select Add to Address Book from the drop-down list.
• In the Address Book window, click New Card to create a new address book card.
• Send a message, which automatically adds the recipient's address to your address book (if enabled).
• In the Address Book window, copy entries to another address book by selecting the entries and dragging them over the name of the address book you want to copy them to.

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Creating a New Address Book

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups provides a default personal address book, but you can create additional address books.

To create a new address book:

1. Click the Address Book icon in the lower-left corner of any &brandShortName; window, or open the Window menu and choose Address Book. You see the Address Book window.

   	Address Book icon

2. In the Address Book window, open the File menu, choose New, and choose Address Book. You see the New Address Book dialogue box.
3. Type the name of the new address book, and click OK.

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Creating a New Address Book Card

Address book cards can be used to store names, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and information such as whether the addressee prefers to receive plain-text or HTML-formatted messages.

To create an address book card for an individual:

1. Click the Address Book icon on the status bar or open the Window menu and choose Address Book.
2. Click New Card. (If you have multiple address books, select the one to which you want to add a card.)
3. Each New Card dialogue box has three tabs:
   • Contact: Enter the following information:
     • First and Last (first and last name of person as you want it to appear in the address book).
     • Display name (the name that appears in the To field of the Compose window).
     • Nickname (a shortcut or alias for the real name).
     • Email address (primary and additional address).
     • Prefers to receive messages formatted as: If you know this recipient can read HTML-formatted messages (such as messages that include links, images, or tables), choose HTML. If this recipient can only read messages sent as plain text (no formatting), then choose Plain Text. If you don't know or are not sure, choose Unknown. If you choose Unknown, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups determines the sending format based on the Mail & Newsgroups Send Format settings in the Preferences dialogue box. If Mail & Newsgroups still can't determine the correct format, Mail & Newsgroups will prompt you to choose a sending format when you send the message.
     • Allow remote images in HTML mail: If you want to allow this sender to have remote content they send you displayed in your message window.
     • Screen name (the AIM contact name).
     • Phones (enter phone numbers for this person)
   • Address: Type additional information such as street address, phone number, and URL.

     Tip: If you enter address information, &brandShortName; displays a Get Map button next to the address when you view this entry's address book card in your address book. Clicking the Get Map button displays a web page that contains a map to the address.

   • Other: Store any additional information you want.

Tip: To quickly add entries to your address book, click any email address in messages you receive and select Add to Address Book from the drop-down list. The New Card dialogue box appears where you can complete the information.

Viewing or Editing Card Properties

To view or edit the properties for an individual card:

1. Select the card from the list of entries in the Address Book window.
2. Click Properties.

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Creating a Mailing List

If you regularly send messages to a group of recipients, you can quickly address a message by using a mailing list that contains the names you want.

To create a mailing list and add it to your address book:

1. In the Address Book window, click New List.
2. Enter the following information in the Mailing List dialogue box:
   • Click the drop-down list at Add to to choose an address book in which to store the list.
   • List name: When you enter the list name in the To field of a message, everyone on the list receives your message.
   • List nickname: Alias (or shortcut) for the list name.
   • Description: Appears after the list name in the address line of the Compose window.
3. Type email addresses to add them to the mailing list.
4. Click OK.

In the left side of the Address Book window, the mailing list appears underneath the address book you added it to.

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Editing a Mailing List

Mailing lists are stored in the address book in which you created them.

To remove a member from the list, begin from the Mail window:

1. Open the Window menu and choose Address Book.
2. Expand the address book containing your mailing list by clicking the small triangle beside the address book title.
3. Highlight the mailing list by clicking its name. The list members appear to the right of the mailing list name.
4. Click the entry you wish to delete.
5. Click the Delete button.

To add members to a mailing list:

1. Open Window menu and choose Address Book.
2. Expand the address book containing your mailing list by clicking the small triangle beside the address book title.
3. Highlight the mailing list by clicking its name.
4. Click Properties.
5. Add or remove entries as necessary.
6. Click OK when you are done.

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Searching Address Books and Directories

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups lets you quickly search an address book or directory by name or email address, or use a combination of criteria to perform a more specific search through an address book or directory.

To quickly search an address book or directory for a name or email address, begin from the Address Book window:

1. In the Address Book window, in the list of address books, select the address book or directory that you want to search.
2. In the Name or Email contains field, type the name or email address that you want to find. You can type only part of the name or email address, or you can type the exact text that you want to find.

   As soon as you stop typing, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups displays only those entries where the name or email address contains the search text you entered.

3. Click Clear to erase the search text and show all entries.

Searching for Specific Entries

You can search address books or directories for specific entries. If you are not already viewing the Advanced Address Book Search dialogue box, begin from the Address Book window:

1. Open the Tools menu and choose Search Addresses. You see the Advanced Address Book Search dialogue box.
2. Next to Search in, choose the address book or directory through which you want to search.
3. Select the matching option Mail & Newsgroups uses to search for entries either that match all or at least one of the conditions (criteria) that you choose.
4. Click More to add criteria and Fewer to remove them.
5. Click Search to begin, or click Clear to reset your entries. The search results appear in lower part of the dialogue box.
6. To sort the entries in a different order, click the column that you want to sort by.
7. To view the card for an entry, select the entry and click Properties.
8. To compose a message to selected recipients, select one or more entries and click Compose.

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Importing Address Books

If you have a &brandShortName; address book from another user profile or computer, or if you have an address book from another mail program, you can import its entries into the Address Book window as a new address book. Keep in mind that when you upgrade a user profile from an earlier version of &brandShortName;, your address books are automatically included, so there's no need to import them.

You can import address books from Netscape 6, Netscape 7, Outlook, Outlook Express, or text files (LDIF, tab-delimited (.tab), comma-separated (.csv), or text (.txt) formats). When you import an address book, Mail & Newsgroups creates a new address book with the imported entries.

You can also import mail messages and settings from Communicator, Outlook, and Outlook Express.

To import an address book, begin from the Mail window:

1. Open the Tools menu, and choose Import. You see the Mail Import Wizard.
2. Follow the instructions to import address books.

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Exporting Address Books

You can export a &brandShortName; address book if you later want to import it into another user profile, move it to another computer, or use it with another program that can import address books. You can export an address book to one of these file formats: &brandShortName; (.ldif), tab-delimited (.tab), comma-separated (.csv), or text (.txt) formats.

To export an address book, begin from the Address Book window:

1. Select the address book that you want to export.
2. Open the Tools menu, and choose Export.
3. In the Export Address Book dialogue box, browse to the location where you want to save the address book file.
4. Choose the file format for the exported address book (.ldif, comma-separated, or tab-delimited).
5. Enter a name for the address book file. Be sure to include the appropriate file extension (.ldif, .csv, .tab, or .txt).
6. Click Save.

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Adding and Removing LDAP Directories

Adding an LDAP directory to your address book allows you to search the directory for email addresses and other contact information. You can also use the directory for address autocompletion when addressing mail messages.

You typically add or remove LDAP directories using instructions provided by your system administrator. Check with your system administrator for the information you will need in order to add a new directory to your address book.

To add a new directory, begin from the Address Book window:

1. Open the File menu, and choose New, and then choose LDAP Directory. You see the Directory Server Properties dialogue box.
2. Type the following information in the Directory Server Properties dialogue box General tab:
   • Name: Enter the name of the directory service (for example, InfoSpace Directory).
   • Host Name: Enter the name of the host name server, such as ldap.infospace.com.
   • Base DN: This setting is used to set the Base distinguished name. Enter codes to restrict searching to a specific country or organisation. For example, c=JP restricts the search to Japan only. Base DN also specifies the organisation to search on within the directory (for instance, o=Netscape Communications Corporation, c=US).
   • Port Number: Enter the port number for the LDAP server. The default is 389.
   • Bind DN: The distinguished name that is used to authenticate (log in) to the LDAP server. If left blank, the LDAP server binds anonymously.
   • Use secure connection (SSL): Choose this setting if your LDAP server supports secure (encrypted) connections. If you are unsure, contact your system administrator.
3. Click the Advanced tab to configure LDAP directory server settings.
4. Type the following information:
   • Don't return more than _ results: This setting lets you limit the number of autocompletion matches returned by the directory server. Enter the maximum number of email address matches to display for autocompletion.
   • Scope: Defines the limits of the search. Choose one of the following:
     • One Level: Retrieves matching entries by searching the base DN and one level below the base DN.
     • Subtree: Retrieves matching entries by searching the base DN in addition to all levels below the base DN. This is the least restrictive search.
   • Search filter: Enter the search filter to apply to matching results that are within the specified scope of the search.
5. Click OK to close the Directory Server Properties dialogue box.

The directory you added appears in the list of address books in the Address Book window.

To delete a directory:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences. You see the Preferences dialogue box.
2. Under the Mail & Newsgroups category, select Addressing. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Mail & Newsgroups to expand the list.)
3. Under Address Autocompletion on the right side of the dialogue box, click Edit Directories.
4. In the LDAP Directory Servers dialogue box, select the directory that you want to delete and click Delete.
5. Click OK, then click OK again to close the Preferences dialogue box.

For information on downloading or synchronising a directory for offline use so that you can search it or use it for address book autocompletion while working offline, see Downloading Directory Entries for Offline Use.

Directory Server Settings

If you are not already viewing the Directory Server Settings dialogue box, begin from the Mail window:

1. Open the Window menu, and choose Address Book.
2. In the list of address books, select a directory.
3. Click Properties.

General Tab

• Name: The name of the directory service (for example, InfoSpace Directory).
• Host Name: The name of the host name server, such as ldap.infospace.com.
• Base DN: The Base Distinguished Name. Codes entered here restrict searching to a specific country or organisation. For example, c=JP restricts the search to Japan only. Base DN also specifies the organisation to search on within the directory (for instance, o=Netscape Communications Corporation, c=US).
• Port Number: Enter the port number for the LDAP server. The default is 389.
• Bind DN: The distinguished name that is used to authenticate (log in) to the LDAP server. If left blank, the LDAP server binds anonymously.
• Use secure connection (SSL): Choose this setting if your LDAP server supports secure (encrypted) connections. If you are unsure, contact your system administrator.

Advanced Tab

• Don't return more than _ results: This setting lets you limit the number of autocompletion matches returned by the directory server. Specify the maximum number of email address matches to display for autocompletion.
• Scope: Defines the limits of the search:
  • One Level: Retrieves matching entries by searching the base DN and one level below the base DN.
  • Subtree: Retrieves matching entries by searching the base DN in addition to all levels below the base DN. This is the least restrictive search.
• Search filter: Specifies the search filter to apply to matching results that are within the specified scope of the search.

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