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Apple Mail overrides my choice of “From” address

My third party email service is accessed via IMAP through the Apple Mail app on my iPad and iPhone. I have several alias addresses on that particular service. Been using it without a hitch for many years. I understand completely how Apple Mail handles different email services and aliases within the same Apple user account. Since installing iOS 14, a problem arose, which may or may not have anything to do with that event. However, it has NEVER happened before on my devices. Whenever I manually select one of the alias addresses and hit send, Apple Mail changes the “From” address to a different alias, the same one every time. It does not matter if I am initiating an email or replying to one, the app will change it to that other alias. It also does not matter if I am passively using the suggested “From” address that appears relating to a given recipient or group of recipients. It will change that too. This causes confusion since I use different aliases for different recipients. This overriding of my chosen alias does not happen when I access my mail service via its online website. It only happens when using the Apple Mail app. My mail settings are correct and have been unchanged for several years. This exact same problem has been reported many times on Apple forums over the last TEN YEARS. I’ve not found any online answers that successfully explain why this is happening or how to fix it. I’ve also not found anything from Apple acknowledging this problem and why it keeps on re-occurring year after year. Anyone have the answer?

iPad, iPadOS 14

Posted on Sep 20, 2020 1:25 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 25, 2020 10:33 AM

Greetings, da_dianhua.


It appears that you're now having a problem with your email aliases you've created for your email account. Since updating your iPad to iPadOS 14, when you select one alias to use, it defaults to another along with the contacts you use to send emails to. We understand how confusing this can be, and we're glad to help with this.


Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support -- Remove the accounts that are being affected, then restart your iPad: Restart your iPad - Apple Support. Once your iPad has returned to the Home Screen, re-add the accounts and test this issue. If the nothing has changed, continue below.


How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support -- Please be sure to have a recent backup of your iPad as a precaution.


If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support -- Since this started after updating your iPad, we'd like you to reinstall iPadOS 14. Place your device in recovery mode using the steps provided. When you're presented with options, please choose "Update" and not "Restore”. Once the process has finished, test the issue once again.


Let us know how that goes.


Take care.

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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 25, 2020 10:33 AM in response to da_dianhua

Greetings, da_dianhua.


It appears that you're now having a problem with your email aliases you've created for your email account. Since updating your iPad to iPadOS 14, when you select one alias to use, it defaults to another along with the contacts you use to send emails to. We understand how confusing this can be, and we're glad to help with this.


Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support -- Remove the accounts that are being affected, then restart your iPad: Restart your iPad - Apple Support. Once your iPad has returned to the Home Screen, re-add the accounts and test this issue. If the nothing has changed, continue below.


How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support -- Please be sure to have a recent backup of your iPad as a precaution.


If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support -- Since this started after updating your iPad, we'd like you to reinstall iPadOS 14. Place your device in recovery mode using the steps provided. When you're presented with options, please choose "Update" and not "Restore”. Once the process has finished, test the issue once again.


Let us know how that goes.


Take care.

Sep 25, 2020 6:04 PM in response to SnickZ.

Hello SnickZ.


Well, I deleted the affected email account from both my iPhone and iPad. Then, I restarted both devices and re-installed the email account on each. After sending test emails, I can confirm that this made no difference at all.


Frankly, I’m balking at having to back up, update and re-setup my devices. No reflection on your skills or advice, but that approach might well create problems greater than the issue I’m facing. As far as I can tell, this alias email address glitch has happened to many other users over the years, often after an iOS update. What I’d really like is for Apple to acknowledge that their update broke the stock Mail client alias feature.....and then release an update fix. Until that happens, I’m inclined to just use webmail.


Thanks for your input. Much appreciated.


Oct 13, 2020 8:43 AM in response to da_dianhua

AFAIK, Apple has not yet acknowledged the bug that I’ve described, but others have. Startmail, the privacy-focused email provider based in the Netherlands, has posted a bug warning to users in their official IMAP setup instructions for Apple Mail (iOS). In fact, they’ve also sent technical feedback to Apple about this. Here is the link to their webpage detailing this issue.


https://support.startmail.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007454777-Send-email-from-alias-in-email-client#h_815b6d67-c03c-49ae-b58d-42bf8b48b220

Apple Mail overrides my choice of “From” address

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