How do I set a default email address?

This solution didn't work for me, but the following solution from about.com did work:

Specify the Default Account in Mac OS X Mail

• Select Mail | Preferences... from the menu.
• Go to the Composing category.
• Select the desired account under Send new messages from: (or Send new mail from:) (under Addressing:).
• Close the preferences window.

Specify the Default Account in Mac OS X Mail 1.x

• Select Mail | Preferences... from the menu.
• Go to the Accounts tab.
• Click on the account you want to make the default and
• keep the mouse button pressed.
• Drag the account to the top of the accounts list.
• Release the mouse button.

To specify a default email account in Mac OS X Mail:

• Select Mail | Preferences... from the menu.
• Go to the Composing category.
• Select the desired account under Send new messages from: (or Send new mail from:) (under Addressing:).
• Close the preferences window.

I have tried both of these again and again. It has had no effect and I am finding it very difficult to keep my work for a charity separate from my activism which is very unhelpful. I checked today - a message I thought I had sent from my personal address (and which carried my personal email signature) was nevertheless sent from charity work address as default. This is a real problem as I also do not wish to share my personal email with my work contacts - so I can't just swap the defaults round.

I have set the option to use the From address I nominate but this doesn't stop it being labelled from another address.

I have tried the drag and drop again and again and it doesn't respond.

Do better please

Or tell me where I'm going wrong

Also the whole programme crashes and hangs on a regular basis.

Rebecca

Yeah, none of these solutions seem to work for my MacBook air—OS 10.12.6., Mail version 10.3. My earthlink address remains the default in the from field, and even the mails I send with my new address manually entered in the "from" field seem to send via earthlink. An answer would be nice.

Open Mail, click Mailon the menu bar, Preferences, Accounts, highlight the account you want tobe the default, then under Outgoing Mail Server check Use only this server.

If you want to use another mail server to send a message, in the New Message compose window, below To, Cc, Subject is the From line where you can select a different server from which to send the mail.

I have no from line on my mac mail emails... and I can't choose which email account I want to use. Sometimes I have my email rejected because it was sent from the wrong email... but I don't know how to change it... there is no From option.

I don't know much of the specification for mac version,

every version has their own methods to do this.

For me, in Yosemite

1. drag is not working

2. outgoing server use this only options doesn't work properly.

for no.2,

if I disable that option on specific account, then when I reply on that account, I expected that account should try to send the other account, but that was not.

it tried to use it's own send server

I'm the only one who has this problem?

ps. what I want is, sending all accounts' mail reply from the one account

Hey, I had the same problem, there was no checkbox for "Use only this server".

In addition, when I compose a new email, there was no "From" that I can choose to select.

Lastly, I couldn't drag and drop an account that I want to make as default account.

I'm using OS El Capitan, and Mail v9.3.

But, I managed to solve my problem, by going to Mail > Preferences > Accounts.

I clicked on each account that I do not want to be default, and under the tab "Account Information", I unchecked "Enable this account". This will inactivate the account.

I repeated the above step for all accounts that I do not want to be default accounts.

So the only account left active is the default account I want.

Then I went back to each deactivated account, and re-activate them again by checking "Enable this account".

Then for some magical reason, the checkbox for "Use only this server" appeared. And the "From" in composing a new email also appeared. And the composing new email auto selects my chosen default account as default. And, be clicking on the "From", I can choose manually another account to send from in my composing new email.

YAY!!

This worked for me - I'm running El Capitan 10.11.4

I unchecked the 2 accounts I didn't want to send from...then went back and re-checked them.

Then went to Accounts > Composing > in the Addressing section, I was then able to select the correct account for the "Send new messages from:" field 🙂

That's been mentioned in the thread and elsewhere, and worked fine previously, but I have a new ISP, and although I can receive mail from the new address, for some reason all outgoing mail was reverting to my previous email "from" address, even if I manually selected the new address in the from field in mac mail. This morning it seems I can manually select the new email address and send from it, but the default "from" server is the old address. I'd rather not have to select it manually for every outgoing email. I suspect there is something up with the new ISP, and perhaps in my configuration of the preferences pertaining to the new ISP's server and mail protocols.

Glad it helped...keep in mind you can always over ride by using the From pull down on a mail message...I forget that sometimes myself :-)

Mahalo_Spirit,

just a quick note to say thank you for this posting. it helped me a great deal.

Joseph

This one worked. Thanks!!