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.

I have made it a habit to add just about everyone who sends me an email to my address book. Who knows what once it could be good for, right?

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

1. Open a message from the sender you wish to add.
2. Press Command-Shift-Y.​
   • If the keyboard shortcut is not working, see below for adding it.
   • 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.

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

1. Select (Apple) | System Preferences… from the menu.
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 in the Keyboard Shortcut field.
9. Press Command-Shift-Y.
10. Click Add.