Mail Aliases

[viggen]

Hi All

I use Mail on my MBP (OS X 10.11.4) with one Imap account configured. It's an Imap account and I also use it to "collect" my work emails so I end up using aliases to send mail from the different addresses.

Problem is, every time I close and re-open Mail, I have to reconfigure the aliases as it simply vanishes. Any idea what could cause this? It's a bit annoying because sometimes I forget and end up sending work emails from my personal account.

Thanks.

 

[IWT]

Welcome to Mac-Forums.

As I don't know where you reside, I've included Links applicable to the UK and US. I mean no insult if you are already completely au fait with the setting up and using of aliases; but hopefully you may find the solution from within these articles.

If not, and/or I've misunderstood your question, please post back.

https://support.apple.com/kb/ph2622?locale=en_US
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2625?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/...dress-(bt-yahoo-mail-sub-account)-for-myself?

Ian

 

[viggen]

Hi IWT

Thanks, I scanned through the links provided but as far as I can tell they don't technically apply to my issue. It seems to be geared more towards iCloud functionality than "Mail"s functionality, if you know what I mean.

Let me put it this way, I have a GMX account (private), Gmail account (private and in the process of closing) and a work email account. I use GMX to pull/collect my emails directly from Gmail and my work account. Using "Mail" I then connect to my GMX account using an Imap configuration. This is all very convenient (for various reasons) except when it comes to sending mail. I therefor have to go into "Mail" - "Preferences" - "Accounts" and then setup my other email addresses in "Alias", which then shows me the "From" field every time I create a mail and I simply select the correct address for the job.

The thing is that every time "Mail" is closed, I have to reconfigure these aliases, which is a pain.

Thanks again.

 

[IWT]

@viggen

Sorry I couldn't help. Bit of a slow-to-think day! Even now, I may be barking up the wrong tree.

I think I understand your setup.

When in Mail, you want to send en email. So you Click on New Message, which opens a window. I too have several emails (all IMAP) within Mail. What I do is go to the "From" line. If I hover over my name, it then appears in a little box with arrowheads. Clicking on the arrowhead, reveals all my email accounts and I click on the one I want to use.

To make one of my email accounts the default for sending, I Go to Mail > Preferences > Composing and in the box "Send new messages from", I select the I want as my default option.

Any help this time

Ian

 

[viggen]

Almost

I just have one IMAP account in "Mail", GMX, so by default it does not give me a "From" field when I create an email. The mail "collecting" is done from "inside" GMX. So my sending and receiving all goes through GMX, but for the sake of appearing professional, I want my outgoing work mails to show my work email address, hence why I have to create an "Alias" under my GMX account. I just wish it would stop disappearing on me

 

[IWT]

Almost, but not there. I'm out of ideas, but will do some research & come back. In the meantime, greater minds than mine may chime in.

Ian

 

[Ember1205]

When you go to the account, click the drop-down for Aliases, and select Edit Aliases, the only thing listed is your "natural" email address, right? You click the "+" symbol to add an alias and it wants you to enter the email address. Are you also clicking in the blank space to the left so you can enter a display name for that address?

If you create an alias, leave Mail (Quit), and wait for it to exit, restart Mail, and go directly back to the account settings, is the alias still present at that point?

 

[viggen]

Yes, yes and No

 

[Ember1205]

Sounds like it's broken, then.

J/K

Can you create a new user profile on your Mac, log in as that user, add your email account to Mail, and see if you can save the alias there?

 

[viggen]

Aha, the plot thickens. Created another user and did as instructed and it worked fine. The question now is, WHY

 

[Ember1205]

There's something that's either corrupt or misconfigured for your profile on the system. I might actually be having an issue myself as my Mail now takes an exceptionally long time to close since I had experimented with the Aliases option myself.

 

[Ember1205]

I just fixed MY problem with Mail...

Launch Mail, open Preferences, click on my IMAP account that's having issues, click the Advanced tab, UNCHECKED (mine was checked) the Automatically detect and maintain account settings box, Save preferences, close Mail, launch Mail, repeat entire process to turn the Check and Maintain option back on, close Mail, reopen Mail, test.

 

[IWT]

@Ember

Great solution. Very useful to know. Thanks a lot.

Ian

 

[viggen]

Most interesting, I unchecked the option mentioned, saved the changes, closed Mail and when I reopen to check the option again it's already checked

PS. Just for interest sake I ran Onyx, let it check my drive and fix permissions ... did absolutely nothing

 

[Ember1205]

I wonder if your user profile it corrupt. You could try this, but BE CAREFUL if you do.

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-rebuild-a-user-account-in-os-x/

Step two on this one might work as well:

http://www.technorms.com/34256/how-to-fix-a-corrupt-user-account-os

 

[Ember1205]

Here's something else to try that seems to have finished repairing an issue I encountered where Mail was taking an excessive amount of time to exist and close:

Launch Mail, Click on the mailbox on the left, from the "Mailbox" menu at the top, choose Rebuild. Let it sit for a little bit. My Gmail account rebuilt very quickly with over 3000 messages in the inbox. My IMAP account took about a solid minute to rebuild and there were only two messages in the Inbox. Seems that was the problem mailbox.

 

[viggen]

Hi and apologies for the loooong delay.

Eventually reloaded OS X completely, ran all the updates etc. but it's still doing the exact same thing. Even when deselecting the automatic settings option, as soon as I quit and reopen it it is selected again.

 

[Ember1205]

Does it still work properly with another user account? What about this profile is not configured the same as the "other" profile where it works? Are you signing in to iCloud? Using Keychain? There has to be a setting somewhere in your profile that's being sync'ed to the cloud and returning back to cause the issue.

Unless... When you did the full reload, you didn't format the drive first and just reinstalled over the top of what was already there.

 

[viggen]

It's finally working, but I'm thoroughly confused as to why

I did format the drive and started from scratch but it still did the same thing. I then killed the accounts (including iCloud, which was inactive). I started by setting up iCloud and letting it sync mail (had to go through a whole story cause I never used it for email before). It then created my GMX account automatically (I assume it did this because my GMX email address is "linked" to my iCloud) and it asked me if it should activate it, which I let it do. After that I created my aliases and presto, they no longer disappear when I close Mail.

So like I said, I'm confusseled

Thanks for the help though