"Send [email] from Selected Account..." is nearly random. Anyone else?

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Level 1

5 points

"Send [email] from Selected Account..." is nearly random. Anyone else?

+I don't think its just me, but maybe it is:+

Do other people have issues with multiple email accounts
in that sending an email with this preference set, tends to be almost random?:

You can send email to a person you have emailed a hundred times, but if you don't double-check the source account - and it may go from the WRONG account. It wasn't the SELECTED account, it may not even be a
much used account (email address).

You can fire 2 emails back-to-back, to 2 different destinations, and the 2nd seems to have arbitrarily
selected another account to send from.

This is more than a little bit galling, if you intend to email certain people ONLY from a special account.
Say, for example, people who indulge in viral emails, etc.

Eventually half your contacts have half your email addresses - and now you are in spam **** again,
as soon as one of your recipients sends one of these viral emails out in a group email.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 19, 2011 12:57 PM

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Answer 1

Dr_Vudu Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 19, 2011 1:09 PM in response to Dr_Vudu

*I changed that setting after writing the above post.* To: Send New Messages From: (x acct)
The other option strikes me as near worthless. Especially as I am changing ISPs & would like to clean up
the spam.

+More detail as to the issue:+
I sent a few emails to 2 people, several times this AM.
They were simultaneously 'co-copied' on the same emails (if that makes sense to say it that way).

This afternoon I sent an email to just ONE of those two recipients.
Then I immediately forwarded the same new email to the 2nd recipient. Did not change a thing beyond selecting the recipient.

THAT email went via a whole different email account.
It had not be selected differently. The account that it went from was not a high traffic one.

Does that selection actually ever work as intended?

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Answer 2

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Jan 19, 2011 1:12 PM in response to Dr_Vudu

If you reply to a message, that reply will always be sent from the account that received the message. If you start a new message, the behavior is determined entirely by a setting in Mail -> Preferences -> Composing. If you set it to send messages from a specific account, all new messages will be send from that account. Otherwise, they will be sent from the account that owns the currently selected mailbox.

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Answer 3

Dr_Vudu Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 21, 2011 4:58 PM in response to thomas_r.

Practice has not proven that to be true.

So far, I'm fine since I changed to ALWAYS send from x account.
But I haven't tried to send from another account since then.

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Answer 4

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Jan 21, 2011 6:03 PM in response to Dr_Vudu

Practice has not proven that to be true.

Then you either have something wrong with Mail on your machine, or you haven't been paying close enough attention to the context when you are sending messages.

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Answer 5

dsclove

Level 1

4 points

Jan 30, 2011 9:08 AM in response to Dr_Vudu

I have two accounts in mail, each with it's own inbox. Here's a description of the problem: Let's say I have five new emails in my inbox. I decide to reply to each of them. Four of the replies may be sent from my account and one may be sent from the other account for no apparent reason. That is to say: every once in a while when I push the reply button, the automatic "from" is the wrong account. This happens from time to time with either inbox.

I haven't seen a fix or explanation for this in any of the posts

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Answer 6

dsclove

Level 1

4 points

Jan 30, 2011 9:18 AM in response to Dr_Vudu

I should add to what I just posted: When I find one of these emails that causes the reply button to bring up the wrong "from" account, it will happen every time with that email, so the problem seems to be triggered by the characteristics of the email I'm replying to.

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Answer 7

Jan 30, 2011 8:03 PM in response to dsclove

Were these messages by any chance sent to both addresses?

Ernie

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Answer 8

dsclove

Level 1

4 points

Jan 31, 2011 3:19 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Yes, I'm pretty sure that the messages that cause this problem are ones that were sent to both addresses.

By the way, another thing that I forgot to mention is that the problem occurs on our Macs but not on our iPhones.

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Answer 9

Jan 31, 2011 4:20 PM in response to dsclove

Mail has its own decision tree for choosing which of two addresses/accounts set up in your preferences it will let you Reply from. From memory, I think it is the one first listed in the distribution list. I have researched this, and written about it, and will have to find that research to be sure.

Ernie

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Answer 10

dsclove

Level 1

4 points

Jan 31, 2011 4:35 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Thanks, Ernie. Please let me know if you find it and if there is anything we can do about it.

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Answer 11

Jan 31, 2011 4:47 PM in response to dsclove

Will do, but I have pretty there is nothing that can be done about the default From that Mail presents, and you would have to manually choose the other address from your address drop-down.

Ernie

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Answer 12

Jan 31, 2011 5:14 PM in response to dsclove

I couldn't find my previous write-up, but I retested, and it is following the practice of choosing the first of two or more addresses you have set up in Mail from the distribution list as the From address to be presented in the Reply, even if you are viewing the message as it was received in another account when you request Reply.

I know of nothing to change this. You can click on Mail in the menubar, and from the resulting menu choose Provide Mail Feedback.

Ernie

Message was edited by: Ernie Stamper

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Answer 13

Dr_Vudu Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 14, 2011 4:03 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

I've submit this as a problem in the "reply" to Apple.
If others are finding it a problem, I hope they do too.

Here are some scenarios that underscore it.

Having the ability to set a default FROM address in MAIL to a given destination is fairly important.
Especially when you are trusting your machine to automate the correct event.

If you have multiple email addresses, one has them for a reason.

You send from only certain ones - to certain people, for a reason:
For example, contacting a subordinate or boss at work, from your home account.
I have found the said contacted colleague will sometimes send work communication to my home account by mistake.

Instead of getting a last minute meeting notice while at work, it goes to a home account I don't pick up very often.

Or, if sent from an account one picks up on their iPhone... Now I get long messages that I would prefer not receiving on that device. Simply because the wrong SEND account was used, but not actually CHOSEN by me. (We all have those relatives, don't we?)

Once an address is "compromised" by inadvertently sending from the wrong address:
well, you accounts are free of spam only so long as your contacts are secure.

You are only as good as your least capable correspondent & spam filter.

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Answer 14

Feb 16, 2011 2:29 PM in response to thomas_r.

Thomas, I've run some tests and here's what I've discovered on my machine. Your post is correct if you set up the preferences -> composing as suggested, but this is for "New Mail" only. The problem I have, like others, is when I reply to a message that contains more than one of my accounts in the TO block. Regardless of which account inbox I'm in, if I reply to a message that had more than one of my accounts in the TO block, it always sends the message from the account that was listed first in the TO block (try it out). Also, I've discovered that when I receive a message with one account in the "TO" block and another account in the "CC" block, regardless of which account I "Reply All" from, it will not send it back to my other account, just the original sender and other accounts not belonging to me, so not really a "Reply All."

I'm new to MAC so I'm interested to hear if others test this and find this to be true, and/or if anyone has discovered a solution.

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Answer 15

bikerk

Level 1

13 points

Feb 20, 2011 11:35 PM in response to Dr_Vudu

This just started happening to me tonight. (recent software update issues perhaps?? Only thing that has happened recently.)

I have two email accounts set up - Work and Personal. My REPLY TO works fine - either to one or multiple recipients. The problem occurs when composing New Mail. Mail Prefs are set to "send new message from acct of selected mailbox". However, my MobileMe account is ALWAYS automatically selected. With the volume of email I send/receive every day, manually using the drop down to change mail accounts is NOT a viable solution for me.

Any new ideas out there?

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