I can appreciate why Apple would change in the behavior of the “Copy Address” command in Snow Leopard’s Mail.app…
Previously, copying an address using the “Copy Address” contextual menu copied only the actual email address — the parts on either side of the @. On Snow Leopard, it includes the name portion, with < > around the email part, so an address looks like Joe Smith <joe.smith@apple.com>.
However, there is a flaw in Apple’s logic… very few, if any, of the places where you paste the copied address understand the longer format and you end up having to edit out the name and <>.
Luckily, Apple implemented the change via a preference setting, AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard.
To set it, first quit Mail, then go to your Terminal, and copy and paste the following command (all on one line).
defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO
When you open Mail again, copying addresses will revert back to the short form again.
