- Overview
-
Getting Started
- What is Adium?
- Installing
-
Accounts
- Creating Accounts
- Personal Settings
-
Contacts
- Managing Contacts
- Managing Groups
- Combining Contacts
- Blocking/Privacy
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Chatting
- Fonts & Colors
- Message Tabs
- Chat Transcripts (Logs)
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Advanced Features
- Voice & Video Chat
- File Transfer
- Direct Connect
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Support
- Troubleshooting
- FAQ
- Bug Reports
- Feature Requests
- Contact Us
-
Development
- Contributing to Adium
- Getting the Code
- Contributing Code
- Following Development
- Sparkle Statistics
- Adium Sponsors
Managing Contacts
Most contact management in Adium occurs directly on the contact list or via menu items in the Contacts menu.
Adding a Contact
If you just signed up for your instant messaging account, be sure to select Add Group from the Contact menu and add a group before adding contacts. See ManagingGroups for more information.
Select Add Contact from the Contact menu to add a contact. You will need to select a service, destination group, and enter the user name of the contact.
To add a contact on a particular service you must have a connected account on that service. For more information, see creating accounts.
Removing a Contact
To remove a contact:
- Select the contact on your contact list (if the contact is offline, you may need to show offline contacts - see below)
- Press ⌘-Delete
- You may alternately select Remove Contact from the Contact menu
- You may alternately right-click on the contact and select Remove
Moving a Contact
To move a contact to a new group, simply drag it. If you have a "borderless" contact list (which includes all of the “Bubbles” window styles), you'll need to hold down ⌘ in order to initiate the drag.
Showing Offline Contacts
By default, Adium hides contacts who are offline.
If you want to see a complete list of your contacts, including contacts who are not online at the moment, select Show Offline Contacts from the View menu or hit ⇧⌘H.
To change back to the default, do the same thing—the menu item is a toggle, so choosing it repeatedly changes the setting back and forth.
Note: If you have offline contacts hidden, Adium also hides any empty groups. Thus, if you want to drag & drop some contacts into an empty group, or delete the group, you must Show Offline Contacts first.
Combining Contacts
See CombiningContacts for information on combining mutliple contacts (creating "metacontacts") into a single contact list entry.
Setting a Contact's Name (Alias)
To set the name you see for a contact (the contact's alias), select Get Info from the Contact menu and fill in the Alias field under the Settings tab.
Alternatively, add a card for that person in the Address Book (making sure to include their IM usernames), and Adium's AddressBookIntegration feature (on by default) will automatically use that information in the Contact List. This has other benefits; Apple Mail, among other applications, makes use of Address Book's contents for better display as well.
Contact List Limits
Most services allow an unlimited number of contacts. Each individual AIM, ICQ, or .Mac account can have a maximum of 500 contacts. This limit is set by the AOL servers; Adium itself places no limits.
