PSA: Apple Mail Incorrectly Parses Addresses in Signatures as Missing Recipients

[MacRumors]

With the release of macOS Ventura last month, Apple updated its stock Mail app with several long-awaited features, including the ability to remind you if you forget to add an attachment or recipient. However, it turns out that Mail incorrectly parses email addresses included in signatures as missing recipients.

"The new feature that is currently bothering me is Mail's new ability to remind me if I forget an attachment or recipient," writes 512 Pixels' Stephen Hackett, who was first to highlight the problem.

"Gmail and others have had this for years, and it's honestly great," he says. "It's just too bad that Mail doesn't seem to understand that some people put their email addresses in their email signatures."

"As you can see in this screenshot [above], Mail has started warning me every time I send a message that the email address in my footer has been left off the recipient list.

"This is a shockingly dumb catch on Mail's part because the application should know what I have set up using its own Signatures feature. It's literally right there in the app's own settings."

Hackett has filed feedback with Apple to hopefully address the problem in a future update, but until then it's worth bearing in mind that Mail will continually bug you to add any addresses in your signatures as missing recipients before it lets you send messages on their way.

Article Link: PSA: Apple Mail Incorrectly Parses Addresses in Signatures as Missing Recipients

 

[jayducharme]

Ventura’s version of Mail has been really wonky for me. It hasn’t been syncing well and often brings back deleted messages. I can’t understand how they can test the OS for so long and yet something this obvious slips through.

 

[RoelJuun]

That is quite embarrassing…seems no one tested the feature properly.

 

[BF1M]

The worlds most advanced os can’t do the most basic task correctly. Color me shocked.

 

[m_emelchenkov]

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?

 

[Wanted797]

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?

You might want to email that person but not reply?

I don’t think clocking the from usually opens a new email instantly.

 

[m_emelchenkov]

You might want to email that person but not reply?

I don’t think clocking the from usually opens a new email instantly.

Right click on the "From" field and voila—click to write new email.

 

[MYZ]

It's difficult to believe that zero people at Apple put their emails in their signature.

So then the obvious question is, why wasn't this easily caught earlier?

 

[t0rqx]

Digging the hole deeper and deeper.

 

[Account25476]

It should require low effort to fix the bug, I simple condition check, so thanks to who reported it.

What I still can't understand is how an entire development department can overlook such a thing, it makes Me think that the development of the Mail app (used by millions of users daily) was handled by a small group of devs who -a short staff- were in hurry to release the app and forget about checking this eventuality.

I would expect that this oversight by a small company developing an app, at the end it's not a feature that needs time to be implemented, it's a if-then-else condition. Hilarious for Apple. I believe Steve Jobs would have fired the entire team for a mistake like this. Rip Steve.

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

Personally I don't get why people put their email address in their email footers. It's in the mail header, if I need / want it that's where I'll find it.

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?

Some people still print emails, or forward them to other people and not always is the 'From' field preserved in this context. It makes sense to have your address embedded in the signature.

 

[Sciomar]

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?

I always wondered this too, we know your address because you sent the email lol. People just really like lengthy signature blocks, especially in academia.

 

[scrl]

I think it's worse than this. I'm getting bugged when I merely mention another email address in a message, because Mail thinks that address should be a recipient too? WHY? I often want to mention another email address but not include them as a recipient. There really ought to be configurable rules around all this...

 

[m_emelchenkov]

I believe Steve Jobs would have fired the entire team for a mistake like this. Rip Steve.

Indeed, not. Steve was a particular greedy person in the part where he paid for the work of developers. He invested more in advertisement rather in development. You may find in his official bio book, or in iWoz book, I don't remember exactly, a situation where Steve hired only one student to write an important driver for floppy/or mouse/or printer. The project was near fail due this. I don't remember the whole story and can't google it, so read books about Jobs to understand better who he was.

 

[m_emelchenkov]

Some people still print emails, or forward them to other people and not always is the 'From' field preserved in this context. It makes sense to have your address embedded in the signature.

Zero sense. Have you tried to print email or forward it? "From" email always will be there.

 

[okkibs]

It doesn't make Apple any money and thus whether or not you can send e-mails is of no concern to them. They have already previously shown how much they don't care, for example when it comes to iTunes, the neutered and bug-riddled "Music" app is worse today than iTunes was many years ago. (Among other things, since the release of Monterey the EQ is broken, a standard feature for any music player.)

I have never used Mail since I need Outlook, but for other apps like Music I am either in the process of switching to something else or I have already abandoned the Apple "solution". I do prefer MacOS over any other OS, but thankfully unlike iOS I can run whatever I like. With some extensions Thunderbird is usable enough too, though I only ever use it with IMAP accounts. It connects to my webdav calendar as well.

Personally I don't get why people put their email address in their email footers. It's in the mail header, if I need / want it that's where I'll find it.

I have my team's e-mail address in there and my own. And sometimes I send from a different e-mail address and the from field won't show my e-mail address.

 

[NightFox]

I don't even understand the point of this feature. It's really useful when an email client notices you might not have included an attachment you refer to, but I'm struggling to think of an instance where I would want to include the email address in the message body of someone I'm actually sending that email to. There maybe be niche cases, but I'd suspect that 99.9% of the time that's not something you would be wanting to do.

I'm sure someone will come up with a valid example though.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?

This was my thought. Mail.app should certainly know better than to parse the signature for missed content, but maybe it’ll have the effect of purging signatures of unnecessary data until it’s fixed

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Zero sense. Have you tried to print email or forward it? "From" email always will be there.

Not if you use something like MS-Exchange. Also some folks have more than one mail account and like to have a 'prefered' address or use a ticketing system that catches a certain address, but not others.
And then people use Mailinglists. Depending on how the list is set up, it might show the list as the origin rather than your address.
So, there are a lot of reasons why one might want to have their address in the signature...

 

[Wackery]

Ventura’s version of Mail has been really wonky for me. It hasn’t been syncing well and often brings back deleted messages. I can’t understand how they can test the OS for so long and yet something this obvious slips through.

Work from home

 

[m_emelchenkov]

Not if you use something like MS-Exchange. Also some folks have more than one mail account and like to have a 'prefered' address or use a ticketing system that catches a certain address, but not others.
And then people use Mailinglists. Depending on how the list is set up, it might show the list as the origin rather than your address.
So, there are a lot of reasons why one might want to have their address in the signature...

It sounds more like a email spoofing rather than real necessity. As for mailing lists—well, cool old days… aren't they gone yet? (I am not a Linux kernel developer). In other words, macOS is full of bugs, and this is not the most unpleasant of them.

 

[00sjsl]

Personally I don't get why people put their email address in their email footers. It's in the mail header, if I need / want it that's where I'll find it.

It could be for those people that acidentally send emails from their personal account

 

[Alwis]

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?

Might be a department mail address in someones personal signature, e.g. "sales@" for someone that is working in the sakes department. It does not really matter, people do it and it should work without problems.

What I still can't understand is how an entire development department can overlook such a thing, it makes Me think that the development of the Mail app (used by millions of users daily) was handled by a small group of devs who -a short staff- were in hurry to release the app and forget about checking this eventuality.

That is a bug, that could have been easily found with automatic testing, wich shines a very bad light on software development at Apple.

The mail app does not get enough attention, it is very buggy for several years, not only in macOS but on the iPad to.

 

[hagar]

The time new Apple features were well thought out in every detail is truly behind us.

Now we get horrors like Focus Modes: basically Apple giving up and saying “here, do it yourself, we can’t figure it out”.