Mail sending email to wrong person

Question

Level 1

8 points

Mail sending email to wrong person

I am using MacMail 2.1 and have had 2 instances where it has automatically sent very private emails to the very wrong person. I have looked back in my sent history and the only adress that appears is the adress I intended to send the email to and yet, in both instances, somehow the email ended up in an unintended persons inbox. It is also important to note that it was sent to the same person both times, and this person was someone that I used to send very regular emails to(1 or more a day) but no longer do.

I have absolutely no idea why this is happening but really need to figure out how to fix it.

Thanks.

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on May 2, 2007 4:39 PM

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Answer 1

May 2, 2007 5:16 PM in response to vivaatlas

I can't think of a reason Mail would do this on its own. Did you examine the Full Headers of the outgoing message? Are you looking at the bcc field too? Are the right and the wrong person connected somehow (i.e. could the message have been forwarded)?

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Answer 2

vivaatlas Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2007 6:08 PM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for the reply, to answer your question:

-yes, i have checked everything, cc, bcc, to: field, everything. There is absolutely no way that these messages where forwarded on either.

I have even checked in the account online, because it is a pop/smtp server. the person they are being sent to is not even in the online adress book.

It really makes absolutely no sense to me. Is there a way to clear all the info stored on the mail database without loosing all the messages "on my mac" in mailboxes?

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Answer 3

May 2, 2007 6:28 PM in response to vivaatlas

Do View > Message > Long Headers while viewing the message that Mail put in Sent. If the wrong addres doesn’t appear anywhere there, then I find it hard to believe that Mail has a bearing on this.

Try using another mail client, such as Thunderbird and see what happens.

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Answer 4

vivaatlas Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2007 7:48 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

I tried that and am not seeing the adress anywhere, the massage appeared in the persons mailbox looking like a forwarded message.... I am really stumped, there is no way that it could have been forwarded on. have you ever heard of mail accidently forwarding messages on to random people?

thanks again.

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Answer 5

May 2, 2007 7:53 PM in response to vivaatlas

If it looks lke a forwarded message, it probably is, and then would have nothing to do with mail. If you can access the email that went to the wrong person's inbox, look at the long headers for that email to identify the sender. One possibility - (I'm assuming that the email went to the correct address and the wrong address) if the correct address is a PC user they may have a virus that wold account for the forwarding. Again, looking at the header of the mail after it arrived at the wrong destination would be helpful.

Have you checked with your ISP?

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Answer 6

vivaatlas Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2007 8:16 PM in response to neuroanatomist

The message did in fact go to both people, but the intended recipient is a mac user, using yahoo online, and while it looked like a forwarded message, the name in the sender box was my name, even though mail has absolutely no record of me sending it.

What do you mean by "have I checked with my ISP"? what would they have to do with it? I am living in mexico right now, where communications are anything but advanced, but how could the ISP do anything?

thanks again.

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Answer 7

May 3, 2007 5:55 AM in response to vivaatlas

Perhaps not your ISP, but whoever your email service provider is. The Mail app would not "accidentally" forward email, and if Mail had sent it there would be a record in the headers. So, the problem is in one of two places 1) your email provider's SMTP server or 2) the indended recipient's email account.

I assume you cannot see the email in the unintended recipient's inbox? Because the full header in the received email would document the entire path the email took to get there, and thus identify the source of the problem.

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Answer 8

vivaatlas Author

Level 1

8 points

May 6, 2007 6:00 PM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for all your help on this, unfortunately I am not able to view the email. Looks like I am not going to find out exactly what happened here.

I do have one more question for you, what exactly is all the stuff that comes up under "references" in long headers view? there seems to be multiple adresses that are just a long series of letters and numbers@yahoo.ca, what do these refer to?

Thanks again.

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Answer 9

vivaatlas Author

Level 1

8 points

May 6, 2007 6:10 PM in response to neuroanatomist

Something interesting that I just discovered, but am not sure if it would mean anything, is that since the last time I checked, yahoo has changed their smtp server settings and gone from a non-ssl system to an ssl system that goes through a different port. I have been using the old settings successfully, but could this change and me continueing to use the old settings be the cause perhaps?

thanks.

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Answer 10

mafiaking

Level 1

105 points

May 6, 2007 10:44 PM in response to vivaatlas

suggestion this usually helps there is an address book within mail itself that will keep addresses of people to whom nmails are sent to
clear that

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