Mail signatures won't stay put

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Mail signatures won't stay put

Since I upgraded to Leopard and moved my system to a new computer (after my laptop died I moved to a Mac Mini), I've had to repopulate all of the account-specific signature lists in Mail.app. In other words, the signatures themselves don't disappear, but they're no longer assigned to each account, and I have to go into Preferences and re-drag each one to where it should be in order to use it, every time I relaunch.

I've searched support and other discussion sites, and no luck yet. Deleting the plists and rebuilding the sigs has not helped. Restarts don't either.

Help?

Thanks, all!
Lauri

G5 Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Jul 17, 2008 8:21 PM

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Answer 1

go.dizzy

Level 1

55 points

Jul 17, 2008 8:30 PM in response to lauridg

you can select a default signature and have multiple, when drafting the email you can select from the drop down list on the upper right and select which signature you wish to use,

but if your SignaturebyAccount.plist is corrupt, you can try Quitting Mail and all other apps, navigate to: /Users/yourname/Libary/Mail/Signatures/

and delete the SignaturebyAccount.plist file, log off the computer, log back on, reopen mail.app and create a new signature list.

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Answer 2

lauridg Author

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0 points

Jul 17, 2008 8:39 PM in response to go.dizzy

Thanks, but that's what I'd already tried. In the meantime, I actually found a solution that seems to be working. Somehow, the outgoing server had dropped off (there was none specified) the email account I've been using most, and that was what I was basing my observations on. I hadn't marked it as "use only this server", so it was routing through other outgoing servers, and I didn't notice.

Once I set the SMTP server and repopulated the signature list for that account, it seems to be sticking fine. I'm surprised that that would be the issue, but it sure seems to be.

I'd like to leave this question open for another day and see what happens. But I'll check back in if I have more info.

Thanks for your help!
Lauri

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Answer 3

go.dizzy

Level 1

55 points

Jul 17, 2008 9:06 PM in response to lauridg

there are signature.plist.backup files in that same directory I pointed to, same for accounts, mailboxes etc.

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Answer 4

lauridg Author

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Sep 5, 2008 11:03 PM in response to go.dizzy

Thanks so much!
L

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Answer 5

Sep 20, 2008 4:58 PM in response to lauridg

Lauri

I'm happy that I found your post. My Apple Email at work developed the exact same problem of default signatures not "sticking" to the assigned account. Your solution (making sure the SMTP server is specifically selected in the accounts pane) solved my problem.

Thanks

Albert

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Answer 6

Sep 30, 2008 2:05 PM in response to lauridg

worked like a charm .. thanks a bunch for the quick answer to my problem ..

take care !!!!

Scot

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Answer 7

Sep 30, 2008 7:13 PM in response to Christopher Hull

Thanks a lot, fixed an annoying problem for me! Ain't the internet amazing?!

Best Wishes!

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Answer 8

Nov 7, 2008 7:33 AM in response to lauridg

I recently used the Migration Assistant to transfer my mail accounts to a new MacBook and suddenly had this problem with one of the mail accounts.

A few things I tried to resolve the issue:

- Repaired Permissions in Disk Utility
- Deleted all Signatures and rebuilt them all
- Tried only adding signatures by using the + button when the desired account is selected, instead of adding the signature when "All Signatures" was selected
- Changed file permissions on ~/Library/Mail/Signatures/SignaturesByAccount.plist to read & write for all (666)
- Tried adding multiple signatures to the rogue account
- Tried changing the "@" symbol to a "+" on the username of this account (this was the only account which used the @ instead of a +, so I thought that @ symbol was confusing things somehow)
- I read on a google search that if I untick "Enable this Account" under the Preferences -> Accounts -> Advanced tab then add the signature to the account and then re-tick "Enable this Account" that it might resolve.

None of which have worked to make signatures "stick" to this account.

I'm very glad I found your solution through the apple forum search!

- Make sure that "None" isn't selected for Outgoing Mail Server on the Account.

Love it!

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