How to Add a Sender to OS X Mail Contacts Quickly

You can set up an easy keyboard shortcut for adding people to your address book.

It's a good habit to add just about everyone who sends you an email to your address book. Who knows what once it could be good for, right?

Mac OS X Mail helps with this obsession as it offers a handy shortcut that lets you add any sender to the address book quickly.

Add a Sender to the Mac OS X Mail Address Book

1. Open a message from the sender you wish to add.
2. Press Command+Shift+Y.​
   1. If the keyboard shortcut is not working, see below for adding it.
   2. You can also select Message > Add Sender to Contacts from the menu.

This adds the sender's email address (together with her name, if one appears in the From: line) to the address book without asking any questions.

If you want to edit the newly added contact (to assign a picture to it, for example), open Contacts separately.

Keyboard Shortcut for Adding Senders in OS X Mail

To set up a keyboard shortcut for adding senders to the address book in OS X Mail:

1. Select Apple > System Preferences…
2. Open the Keyboard section.
3. Go to the Shortcuts tab.
4. Select App Shortcuts.
5. Click +.
6. Make sure Mail is selected under Application:.
7. Type “Add Sender to Contacts” under Menu Title.
8. Click on the Keyboard Shortcut field.
9. Press Command+Shift+Y.
10. Click Add.