PSA: Apple Mail Incorrectly Parses Addresses in Signatures as Missing Recipients

With the release of macOS Ventura last month, Apple updated its stock Mail app with several long-awaited features, including the ability to remind you if you forget to add an attachment or recipient. However, it turns out that Mail incorrectly parses email addresses included in signatures as missing recipients.

mail missing recipient
"The new feature that is currently bothering me is Mail's new ability to remind me if I forget an attachment or recipient," writes 512 Pixels' Stephen Hackett, who was first to highlight the problem.

"Gmail and others have had this for years, and it's honestly great," he says. "It's just too bad that Mail doesn't seem to understand that some people put their email addresses in their email signatures."

"As you can see in this screenshot [above], Mail has started warning me every time I send a message that the email address in my footer has been left off the recipient list.

"This is a shockingly dumb catch on Mail's part because the application should know what I have set up using its own Signatures feature. It's literally right there in the app's own settings."

email signatures pane

Hackett has filed feedback with Apple to hopefully address the problem in a future update, but until then it's worth bearing in mind that Mail will continually bug you to add any addresses in your signatures as missing recipients before it lets you send messages on their way.

Related Forum: macOS Ventura

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.4 and iOS 27 Features Revealed in New Leak

Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28. The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple Logo Top Half

Early iOS 26 Software Leak Uncovers Dozens of Upcoming Apple Features

Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code. In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple Leak Confirms Work on Foldable iPhone, AirTag 2, and Dozens More Devices

Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak. As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Leak Reveals Foldable iPhone Details

Monday December 15, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station. According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 Beta 1 Features: What's New So Far

Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas. We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features. Transfer to Android Apple is making it simpler...
iOS 26

Apple Releases iOS 26.2 With Alarms for Reminders, Lock Screen Changes, Enhanced Safety Alerts and More

Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. ‌iOS 26‌.2 is compatible with the ‌iPhone‌ 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation ‌iPhone‌ SE. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features on Your iPhone

Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon. Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week. iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2 Likely to Offer These 10 New Features

Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...

Top Rated Comments

m_emelchenkov Avatar
41 months ago
What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
scrl Avatar
41 months ago
I think it's worse than this. I'm getting bugged when I merely mention another email address in a message, because Mail thinks that address should be a recipient too? WHY? I often want to mention another email address but not include them as a recipient. There really ought to be configurable rules around all this...
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
NightFox Avatar
41 months ago
I don't even understand the point of this feature. It's really useful when an email client notices you might not have included an attachment you refer to, but I'm struggling to think of an instance where I would want to include the email address in the message body of someone I'm actually sending that email to. There maybe be niche cases, but I'd suspect that 99.9% of the time that's not something you would be wanting to do.

I'm sure someone will come up with a valid example though.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BF1M Avatar
41 months ago
The worlds most advanced os can’t do the most basic task correctly. Color me shocked.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MYZ Avatar
41 months ago
It's difficult to believe that zero people at Apple put their emails in their signature.

So then the obvious question is, why wasn't this easily caught earlier?
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Detektiv-Pinky Avatar
41 months ago

What's the idea to add own e-mail to signature if it is already in the "From" field?
Some people still print emails, or forward them to other people and not always is the 'From' field preserved in this context. It makes sense to have your address embedded in the signature.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)