Can Mail be configured to allow sending from a different alias/personality?

Question

Can Mail be configured to allow sending from a different alias/personality?

I have an IMAP mail account with Fastmail (fastmail.fm). That account is being used as a virtual domain to host e-mail from my real domain name... so mail sent to *@mydomain.com is going directly to the Fastmail servers/account.

On Fastmail, I can setup multiple personalities (i.e. sales@mydomain.com, support@mydomain.com, etc) that I can both receive AND send mail from.

Without having to configure different accounts in Mail (since they're not separate accounts), is there a way that I can get separate addresses to send mail from, so that I can select in the FROM drop-down in the compose window if it's "sales@mydomain.com" or "support@mydomain.com" etc? This works out-of-the-box for .Mac accounts...

Is this possible?

Thanks

2 x 2.8GHz Quad Core Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2GB RAM, 30" Apple Cinema HD Display

Posted on May 4, 2008 10:46 PM

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Answer 1

Axel Foley

Level 10

150,978 points

May 4, 2008 11:04 PM in response to John and Peter

I just checked in Mail (Comes with Leopard) to see what you had requested in your post. Unfortunately I was unable to set up multiple personalities without setting up multiple accounts.

I recommend that you setup multiple accounts for each of the "personalities" however do not have mail check the respective inbox when mail makes an automatic check. This way you will still have an option to choose any personality that you want and ignore the inbox when mail makes an automatic check (Saves time). The advanced tab of preferences in accounts has an option to either include the particular account to be checked for mail or not.

Axel F.

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Answer 2

May 5, 2008 8:16 AM in response to John and Peter

You can enter multiple email addresses in Mail Preferences/Accounts/Account Information in the box for Email Address by merely separating them with commas. With this setup you can normally send from any address in that list, providing the SMTP will accept it. If the email sent to any of those addresses will show in the FastMail account when received, then you are all set.

Check either Mail Help or the following document link for Email Alias, and ignore any referencing a .mac alias, which is handled differently:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/3.0/en/9973.html

Ernie

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Answer 3

May 5, 2008 8:08 PM in response to John and Peter

Thanks, guys! Both are great options. Sounds like Ernie's suggestion for adding multiple addresses in a comma-separated list in the account properties will be the simplest route.

Really appreciate the quick responses.

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Answer 4

May 5, 2008 8:12 PM in response to John and Peter

There is one catch with the comma separated list, however, and that is whether you wish to have different Full Name info going with the email address. For that you would probably need to create different accounts, which can get a little complicated sometimes, and cause you to consider whether the extra accounts need to never check for New Mail, etc.

Ernie

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Answer 5

May 5, 2008 8:15 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Ernie,

You beat me to the punch... I was just about to reply with a follow-up asking if there was a way to do just that. Looks like I may need to use the separate accounts option in order to allow my to have Full Name information that is more helpful. For now, it won't be a problem because I only need 2 different addresses. If that changes in the future, however, I can see how it would be a problem.

It would be simple if I could add a comma-separated list of Full Names in the Full Name field (in the same order as the list of addresses) and have them match up.

Hmmm... might have to try that, just to see if it would work! 😀

Thanks again.

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Answer 6

May 5, 2008 8:26 PM in response to John and Peter

If the email address is sufficiently descriptive without Full Name info, then you can adjust the Full Name info to be generic or blank. But if you want a really descriptive Full Name, then separate accounts may be the only way to go.

There has been a script to do this for .Mac aliases, but I don't know if anything similar has evolved for normal aliases or not. I will check.

Ernie

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Answer 7

May 6, 2008 4:25 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Thanks, Ernie.

Seems like with .Mac Aliases, it's built in. I have several set up, and when I go to the Account Preferences for my .Mac Account in Mail, there's a button right there for editing Email Aliases (which takes me online to my .Mac account for management). Any aliases (including Full Names) come through and are available for composing new messages (nicely done, Apple!).

Just wish this were true for "standard" IMAP accounts.

What would the script do? Automagically change the account Full Name when sending from one of the aliases?

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Answer 8

May 6, 2008 7:58 PM in response to John and Peter

I have checked with Andreas Amann, who does a lot of mail scripts, and he say that structurally it cannot be be done with a script, unfortunately.

Ernie

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