When I click on address book I no longer get the slot for inserting a name, instead a long list of names/addresses
I've been sending new emails (not replies) this way: Click on address book. Up comes space to insert a name. I do so, find the name (among a few close to it), highlight it and then click "write." This produces an addressed email, which I proceed to write and send. But as of a day ago, when I click on the address book, what appears is a long list of names and email addresses. It fills most of the iMac screen. And there's no space to insert a name. Presumably I did something stupid to make that happen. What have I done? And how do I reverse it? Thank you. Arthur
Chosen solution
This doesn't answer your question about what's gone wrong.
I think the Address Book is a rather lame place to start from.
Click on Write, or Reply or Forward and the messages writing window appears. prefilled with the previous message text if it's a reply or forward.
If you select the To: box and start typing, it will suggest names from the address book matching what you typed.
If you really prefer to pick from a list, you can open a Contacts Sidebar which lists one of your address books. There are buttons to add selected Contacts to your message. You can drag and drop and use right click too. On a PC, F9 opens this sidebar, or you can use alt+v to get the View menu and then choose the Contacts Sidebar from the sub-menu. I'm not sure how much of this works on the Mac.
So it's easy to add multiple addresses. You can set them as Cc or Bcc.
Your method lets you address a new message, but doesn't support reply or forwarding. It enters all addressees as To: and you have to change them one by one if that's not appropriate.
You see why I think the Address Book is bad place to start from?
If this other approach doesn't work then I'd suggest you have a corrupted Address Book. Do you have a recent backup to restore from?
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Chosen Solution
This doesn't answer your question about what's gone wrong.
I think the Address Book is a rather lame place to start from.
Click on Write, or Reply or Forward and the messages writing window appears. prefilled with the previous message text if it's a reply or forward.
If you select the To: box and start typing, it will suggest names from the address book matching what you typed.
If you really prefer to pick from a list, you can open a Contacts Sidebar which lists one of your address books. There are buttons to add selected Contacts to your message. You can drag and drop and use right click too. On a PC, F9 opens this sidebar, or you can use alt+v to get the View menu and then choose the Contacts Sidebar from the sub-menu. I'm not sure how much of this works on the Mac.
So it's easy to add multiple addresses. You can set them as Cc or Bcc.
Your method lets you address a new message, but doesn't support reply or forwarding. It enters all addressees as To: and you have to change them one by one if that's not appropriate.
You see why I think the Address Book is bad place to start from?
If this other approach doesn't work then I'd suggest you have a corrupted Address Book. Do you have a recent backup to restore from?
An afterthought: in your Address Book, use <alt> and v to see the menu, then select Toolbars and then Address Book Toolbar.
Does this restore your search box?
http://chrisramsden.vfast.co.uk/13_Menus_in_Thunderbird.html http://chrisramsden.vfast.co.uk/5_Lost_toolbars.html
Modified by Zenos