When composing with autocomplete from address books turned on; If there are multiple matches, autocomplete should not be randomly picking one (the first alphabetically?). Because addressing the wrong person can be a serious problem. Instead it should just offfer the dropdown list of possible matches, and wait for your to select one. I can't find any config: setting that might influence this - other than turning autocomplete off entirely. Using the sidebar is lots of extra clicks and mouse work over just clicking cursor down to the correct entry in autocomplete.

+1! This has bitten me enough times that I had to *turn off* autocomplete altogether. I misaddressed several emails including sensitive information and sent them to the wrong people (john@other.place rather than john@my.location). I've thought about this problem a lot and the solution Aaron proposes is really simple and I think the best.

Please describe how does it pick. Is it not showing a list at all? Or you just want it to not put any in the field and let them all in list? Could type speed influence this? that is Bug 322525 (+What version was it exactly?) I'm just trying to be more precise ..

I really don't understand your question. Are you asking about what it does now, or what I think it should do? Right now, it shows the list of possible matches (in some unclear order) and puts the first one into the address field (selects it). It should not do this as it has no basis to assume the first one is correct, and picking the wrong one could be a serious mistake. Therefore, if there are multiple matches it should not pick any of them, just show the list.

Aaron's right. Has nothing to do with typing speed. To repro, make sure you have two similar email addresses in your address book, e.g. dev@example1.com and dev@example2.com. Start a new mail, and type "dev" into the To: line. You'll see the dropdown list with all matches below the address (To:) line (that's OK), but it also fills in the first one in the address line, highlighted. If you just tab off that field or click into another field, it uses that one. This is not bug 322525; in that one the dropdown list disappeared. Here you *can* select a different one if you want, and are paying attention. What it *should* do is: if there's more than one match, leave the address line blank and only put up the dropdown menu. Tbird has no way of knowing which one you want; it's currentnly too easy to autoselect the wrong one and embarrass yourself mightily. I'll attach a screenshot if I can.

screen shot of autocomplete with multiple possible matches; the first one gets auto-entered but shouldn't.

(In reply to comment #3) > It should not do this as it has no basis to assume the first one is correct, Yep. I thought this is it. (In reply to comment #4) just wanted to make that clear. Now, would a pref/option (check) do? like a new options/composition/addressing -"[x]select first line while auto complete" [Devs are working on a smarter index and database now, which may lead to more contextualized responses, maybe even in this case, smarter ones. Ideally a more "adapted to your behavior" TB .. But this may be just a better automation where people want it. So if some don't want it, an option could do.] Something like, if is a matter of option, let's get an option ..

Sure, option is fine. The correct behavior is, IMHO: * get matches * if n_matches == 1, select first line * else select first line ONLY IF option is enabled. This way it doesn't complicate things when there is a unique match, but it saves you from embarrassment by sending to the wrong address when there's more than one. Especially if you're really used to autocomplete working on a particular address, but then you get another address that happens to match added to your address book. Option text could read: [x] Auto-select first autocomplete match if multiple matches or, my fave: [x] Avoid embarrassment when there are multiple autocomplete matches :-) :-)

Well, I'm not against an option IF it is useful. I suspect this one would not be; would anyone ever WANT TB to auto-select the "first" address? At most an about:config option for the obscure cases. So far nobody has spoken in favour of it. Of course we have a very limited sample here.

I dislike autocomplete in addressing for exactly this reason. I would much prefer that autocomplete for addressing was disabled, if nicknames worked independently of autocomplete. Could we have options to enable/disable autocomplete and enable/disable nicknames independently for addressing?

(In reply to Aaron Lawrence from comment #8) > Well, I'm not against an option IF it is useful. I suspect this one would > not be; would anyone ever WANT TB to auto-select the "first" address? At > most an about:config option for the obscure cases. > > So far nobody has spoken in favour of it. Of course we have a very limited > sample here. It would be a useful option, for those who want to turn "select first" off--it's not for everyone. Though, "Select First" should still remain the DEFAULT setting, it's how Thunderbird has always worked and many people leverage it. I completely disagree with comment #8. I use the first selection all the time. There are loads of other people who rely on the first selection as well. There have been numerous bugs reported in the past half year because the auto-complete feature is broken when you type and tab away from the field too quickly (that's why I logged into Bugzilla, to see if it was already reported and planned for fix). See Bug 1012397, scroll through the commends to get an idea of people using it, and the number of dupes that have been reported for that but.

I too have always used this feature. The current breakage is causing pain, no doubt, but apparently it will soon be fixed. I agree it should default to enabled, but have no problem with a pref (GUI or about:config) to disable it if desired.

I agree with Ken that we'll certainly keep in-line autocompletion ON as a default. However, a pref to enforce more explicit confirmation would certainly be useful. Pressing TAB to confirm in-line autocompletion is actually a somewhat ambiguous design, because normally TAB would only move the focus around, not change inputs (on Windows). Likewise, what does it mean when user clicks away from a non-confirmed autocomplete suggestion a la "doe >> John Doe <j.doe@doe.com>"? Should we confirm it or not? However, the worst problem is that TB's autocompletion is so aggressive that actually it will NOT let you enter certain addresses if they partially match what you already have in your AB. So if you have "j.doe@foo.bar" in your AB, you CANNOT address a msg to "doe@foo.bar". Implementing this bug might also be (insufficient) workaround for these failures.