How to prevent Mail to make changes to Contacts

[desertman]

I noticed already several times that entries in Contacts get changed without me doing this. If I have an entry only with a last name suddenly a first name has been added, or vice versa, or entries suddenly have more email address than those that I added to them.

I suspect that this is done by Mail (based on emails that I receive and/or write from and to my contacts). Certainly with good intentions (like everything that Apple does) - however, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I don't want this. I want to decide what happens to my contacts. I want at least each and every time get asked if any other applications wants to make changes to any contact.

Is there a way to prevent Mail to make changes to Contacts?

Greetings - desertman

 

[benwiggy]

As far as I know, Mail should not (and does not) make changes to Contacts automatically.
The only thing that's likely to cause Contacts to change in this way is if they have been synced with another device, where the changes were made.

 

[desertman]

This is how I think it works:

If I have, let's say, a contact "James" in Contacts with only "James" in the last name field (nothing in the first name field) and "james@james.com" in the email address field and this James sends me an email in which his name is "James" and I reply to this email with Command+R the contact "James" in Contacts gets automatically the first name "James" added to it and appears as "James James" in Contacts.