Mail.app - What sets sort order when adding To addresses by typing Group name?

Question

Using Mail.app in Mac OS X (10.6.3) I'm seeing apparently random sort order when sending a email to a group. Not a major issue but you'd think it be alphabetical?!?

To reproduce:

1. Compose New Message in Mail.app
2. Type in a group name from your Address Book
3. The addresses from that group will populate the To: field in apparently random fashion

FYI- You'd think that choosing Edit Distribution List… in Address Book would let you sort the list...but nope!

Anyone know what/how to set this sort order?

Answer 1

There is a sqlite database in ~/Library/Application Support/Address Book/ called AddressBook-v22.abcddb (the name maybe different on your mac) in there there is a table called ZABCDRECORD. This contains the records, the order that records appear in the database is the order they appear in your group when sending an email, this order is the order they were added to the database.

I don't know of any way to sort it except by deleting and re-adding members, you could probably fiddle with the sqlite database but the odds are something would break.

The order users appear in the to box won't make any difference, hopefully this solved your curiosity.