I notice that Postbox seems to work well with multiple identities. In addition, you can set a different name for each identity, such as:
John Smith for john.smith@somedomain.com
Support for support@somedomain.com
Is there a way to do that in Apple Mail? If not, I think I'll switch to Postbox. It's on sale for $6.95 for a short time.
Thanks,
doug
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009, 12 GB)
Not sure is it what you ask. However, if you add an e-mail account to the Mail app, let's say support@somedomain.com and type Support to the "Full name" field - the recipient will see Support <support@somedomain.com> in from field.
Thank you for your reponse.
I mean an alias for a single account.
doug
I have not tried this, however I think adding a new e-mail account with alias e-mail address would do the trick.
Theoretically there are places to enter alias email addresses for each account (a comma delimited list after the primary address).
But I don't see a place to enter other than the one full name for each account.
doug
Just tried one thing and it worked for me.
Close Mail app.
go to ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
and copy file Accounts.plist somewhere to keep the orriginal safe if something goes wrong.
then open Accounts.plist with text editor (do not use rich text editor, just plain text)
in this file look for
| <dict> |
| <key>AccountName</key> |
| <string>The name you call your account</string> |
The name you call your account should be the rel name of that account
then somewhere bellow you should see
| <key>EmailAddresses</key> |
| <array> |
| <string>john.smith@somedomain.com</string> |
| </array> |
add these lines (that appears green in this port) bellow </array> that belongs to john smith.
| <key>EmailAliases</key> |
| <array> |
| <dict> |
| <key>alias</key> |
| <string>support@somedomain.com</string> |
| <key>name</key> |
| <string>Support</string> |
| </dict> |
| </array> |
The account(s) you create in Mail are generally the one(s) that you set up with your ISP - i.e. when I had Comcast as my internet service provider, they allowed you to set up 5 email accounts (if I remember correctly). My current ISP allows two I believe. In any case, you have to set them up with your ISP which is the service that will also allow you to send/receive email - you need to set up the accounts with them, else you won't be able to send emails (their server will not recognize the from address as a valid address).
Addendum to my post:
Took a while to find this Comcast webpage on how to add other user names to your account:
http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/adding-new-user-names-or-e mail-addresses
Depending on who your ISP is, they may have a similar process or instructions.
Forget about Postbox in my first post. It's incredibly flaky. There doesn't seem to be much control over what account your email goes out from. I was clearly selecting my personal account in an email to my sister, but in the sent mail it was going from my work account. I had no control over it at all.
Anyway, I'm going to look at some of the solutions posted here and write again. Thanks, people.
doug
Doug Lerner2 wrote:
Theoretically there are places to enter alias email addresses for each account (a comma delimited list after the primary address).
But I don't see a place to enter other than the one full name for each account.
doug
Mail (on a Mac) can accommodate multiple accounts (lots) each will send mail under it's own identity. Additionally the accounts can have multiple addresses (aliases), this is the purview of the account and is usually set on the providers website and then entered in Mail in the manner you specified.
Aliases are entered in Mail here:
It's not a matter of adding extra usernames via my ISP. In this case I am the ISP and control my own domain. It's a matter of getting Apple mail to send under aliases for a single account.
Still looking at the other solution posted here. Thanks.
doug
I am referring to the names associated with each address in a single account. This does not have anything to do with multiple accounts. Nor does it have to do with multiple email addresses per se. It has to do with being able to associate separate names (info, support, doug, etc.) with the different email aliases.
doug
Munas,
I'm in the file now. But before proceeding... for each alias/name pair would I need a separate <dict>...</dict> pair?
Thanks,
doug
yes, the aliaces part should look like:
| <key>EmailAliases</key> |
| <array> |
| <dict> |
| <key>alias</key> |
| <string>support@somedomain.com</string> |
| <key>name</key> |
| <string>Support</string> |
| </dict> |
| <dict> |
| <key>alias</key> |
| <string>support2@somedomain.com</string> |
| <key>name</key> |
| <string>Support2</string> |
| </dict> |
| <dict> |
| <key>alias</key> |
<string>support3@somedomain.com</string> |
| <key>name</key> |
| <string>Support3</string> |
| </dict> |
| <dict> |
| <key>alias</key> |
| <string>support4@icloud.com</string> |
| <key>name</key> |
| <string>Support4</string> |
| </dict> |
| </array> |
Alas, it didn't work.
I read about this technique in some forums this evening, and it appears the same thing happens to other people using 10.8.2 - if the .plist is modified this way Mail crashes upon startup.
Thanks for the hint though. Maybe there is hope somehow.
Or a reasonable alternative to Mail? I thought Postbox might be that reasonable alternative, but I was having a horrible time with it trying to get mail to be sent via the correct SMTP server and in my tests kept on sending email from different accounts from what I intended!
Thanks,
doug
That, test line was in my mail plist file for about 4 hours (about an hour ago I removed it since I do not need it) and no Mail app crashes. However, 4 hours is too short period to confirm or deny app crashes due these changes in plist file.
I use aliases for domains managed by me. However, these aliases I use are one direction - incoming mail only and I do not reply to e-mail messages received to aliaced addresses. Aliases I use are for Apple IDs for different countries etc.
Why you do not use separate account for "support" and use alias instead? I guess that in this situation a separate account would make life much easier:
- Separate (inbox, outbox)
- Easy reply from this account
Since nowadays most of mail app support multiple mail accounts you may receive and reply to e-mail messages from the account you want.
Can a single Mail account have multiple outgoing people names?
