Can't change Mail accounts display order? + From behavior changed?

Oh! It's not just me then! Sorry - I don't have the answer - I am still looking for a solution myself. There must be an answer somewhere - it is hugely frustrating!!!

A bit more hunting around coughed up the information that you can at least change the default account to send from. 😉

Go to Mail > Preferences > Composing

Under "Addressing" click on the pop-up menu and select the account you want to be your default sending account for new mail.

No answer on the changing account order, but for me this solves my problem - hopefully it will be useful to you.

Cheers

😎

Before (Lion) you ware able to change the order of the accounts in "Preferences > Accounts" and that was setting up your default account.

Now (Mountain Lion) you can change that order in "Mailbox List" (Shift+Cmd+M), the first acount there, would be your default account.

Very good! I like simple solutions to problems.

Thank you very much for your help!

😎

One problem: After you get the order nicely set like that, if at any time you go into Preferences > Accounts and edit or add any accounts, the order gets reset to:

1. iCloud accounts
2. Exchange accounts
3. Alphabetical IMAP and POP accounts

...so you have to re-do the order in the Mailbox list, and sometimes quit and restart Mail in order for the change to be reflected in the From: dropdown list of accounts in a new email.

Not the end of the world, but it would sure be nice if Apple let you control the order in the Preferences > Accounts area and fixed this reset order issue.

The Issue that R Allen described is a frustrating one. It is one that didn't exist in Lion, but does in Mountain Lion. -

• arrange your mail accounts in the order you prefer in the Mail window
• this stays as your default order – unless you make changes to Preferences > Accounts
• when changes are made, it reverts to the order that R Allen described
• then, you have to manually rearrange your accounts again

This is something that did not occur in Lion, so is a newly introduced bug to Mountain Lion.

It would be great if they could fix it!

I have this issue too.

Rearranging within the mail interface is OK… but they have removes the 'expected behaviour' from preferences - for no good reason (and that part of the UI was designed to work that way, sothey are breaking their own UI rules by negating the functionality).

The mailboxes do seem to rearrange them - especially with the iCloud account as the first one. I haven't yet established what instigates this change. Is it related to iCLoud itself and incorrectly synchronising the wrong data (as it often does because you can no longer set the flow direction??!!!)

I think this is one of those dull 'auto features' introduced in Lion/ML that are supposed to help, but actually interfere with any creative or work process on your Mac, because you can no longer work naturally, or because like this, the settings need constant nannying to fix them.

:::urgh!:::

Ditto here. As someone who owns multiple companies, plus Admins a non-profit, I have 20 email accounts...

..that are all in the wrong order now, thanks to ML.

Only solution I could come up with was to add numbers to the Description fields in the Preferences > Accounts list. Example:

Old names = AU-Susan, AU-Inbox, AU-Accounting (in their old, preferred, non-alphabetical order)

New names = 1. AU-Susan 2. AU-Inbox AU-Accounting

Annoying as ****, since it lengthens the account name, making it necessary to resize the column (which, on a MacBook Air means gobbling up valuable screen space). But at least it puts the accounts in the order I want them.

One "work around" is to drag the importat mail folders to the header. (Just ride of the hide Button) I have my 5 most important inboxes there. The good thig is, they stay there in the order I put them. Not a elegant solution, but it works for me.

Klaus

I think I managed to solve this issue, by adding 01, 02, 03 to the description of my accounts. They now appear in the order I want them to appear.

I too was using the 1.2 3 numbering method for each account. I found a simple solution. In your mail default page, go to the inbox or wherever all the mail boxes of each account are. Change the sequence there and the sequence changes automatically in the composing drop down.

Cheers. If someone has posted this solution. My apologies.

Sathya

I believe your solution is short term. Once you make a change to any account, they all revert to the Mac selected order. You will have to re-order them again.

I am able to re-order the email accounts by dragging them in the main Mail window, but not in the Preferences/Accounts window. Agreed that this would be annoying when 20 email accounts get reset, but at least it is possible to put them back in order in the window where we use them.

This problem seems to have carried over to Yosemite too. I can render my dozen or so Mailboxes in the Inbox list, but as soon as I open Preferences > Accounts and make a change, I have to re-order them again.

Short of adding 01, 02, etc to the names, there doesn't seem to be a way to reorder them in Preferences so they stick.

Agree with all this and PLEASE Apple fix it! I have 20 email inboxes and need them to show in a certain order in my inbox list!

Adding to the list of what order is forced automatically by Apple Mail:

"After you get the order nicely set like that, if at any time you go into Preferences > Accounts and edit or add any accounts, the order gets reset to:

1. iCloud accounts
2. Exchange accounts
3. Google/Gmail accounts
4. Yahoo mail accounts
5. AOL accounts
6. then finally you can use your numbering edit of the description for Alphabetical IMAP and POP accounts

...so you have to re-do the order in the Mailbox list"