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jrafter · Jul 29, 2003, 11:21 AM

Does anyone know if Mail.app will support multiple "personalities" or "identities" (a la Entourage) in Panther?

Thanks in advance!

Adam Betts · Jul 29, 2003, 11:38 AM

You can do this in 10.2, 10.1 or 10.0

jrafter · Jul 29, 2003, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
You can do this in 10.2, 10.1 or 10.0

Well, sort of... but you have to create a new account. I just want to be able to send from different "identities" on the same account. Entourage allows that in a way that Mail.app does not (to the best of my knowledge).

Adam Betts · Jul 29, 2003, 12:32 PM

Why would you want to send from different "identities"?

jrafter · Jul 29, 2003, 12:54 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Why would you want to send from different "identities"?

Because my email provider allows several different "aliases" or "addresses" from one account, and I would like to be able to send one email as from myself personally, another as from myself professionally, and my wife would like to send one as from herself individually. Other email programs really do allow this, and I just wondered if there are any plans for Mail.app to do so, too.

brainchild2b · Jul 29, 2003, 01:11 PM

You can do this easily enough, just add more SMTP servers with the same server name and different reply addresses.

johnpg · Jul 29, 2003, 01:11 PM

You can have multiple "from addresses" by comma separating them when you set up your account. When it asked for your emaill address enter:

userid1@yourdomain.com, userid2@yourdomain.com, sjobs@someotherdomain.net

etc.

It won't allow different "from names" though. Hopefully Panther will have better functionality for that.

Adam Betts · Jul 29, 2003, 01:36 PM

Oh oh I get it now.. I thought he was talking about nickname that people see when they get new email.

mattmarshall · Jul 29, 2003, 01:56 PM

Mail has always had this ability.

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 02:57 PM

Originally posted by mattmarshall:
Mail has always had this ability.

Elaborate, cause I haven't found it yet...

A personality is a configuration with a custom from-name, from-address, send-folder and signature. So you can have a 'personal'-personality which has your firstname as from-name, a funny email address, the regular send folder and a funny signature.

A 'business' personality would have your full-name, your business mail-address, a seperate send-folder (where send mail is saved to when you send with this personality) and a professional signature.

Now you tell me how you can do this with Mail.app currently...

awaspaas · Jul 29, 2003, 03:13 PM

When you add accounts in the Mail preferences, you can have several different email addresses. When you compose a message there's a popup you can use to select which from address to use. I don't know about signatures though.

cpac · Jul 29, 2003, 03:17 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
Elaborate, cause I haven't found it yet...

A personality is a configuration with a custom from-name, from-address, send-folder and signature. So you can have a 'personal'-personality which has your firstname as from-name, a funny email address, the regular send folder and a funny signature.

A 'business' personality would have your full-name, your business mail-address, a seperate send-folder (where send mail is saved to when you send with this personality) and a professional signature.

Now you tell me how you can do this with Mail.app currently...

Well without being at home to check on my Mac I can tell you that you can:

(1) have multiple signatures with no problem - enter multiple signatures, and check the option to "show signatures when composing" - you'll get a nice pop-up where you can select whichever one you want.

(2) have multiple email addresses with no problem - enter multiple accounts, when you compose you'll have a pop-up so you can choose which address the email is coming from

(3) have email saved in a special "sent" folder - again I think this happens now when you're using multiple accounts - just spill open the sent folder and each account should appear separately. If I'm remembering that incorrectly, I know you can set a preference in the Account settings to save a copy of sent messages in folder X. This is, I think, in the "advanced" tab.

So the only thing we may be missing is whether or not you can change the "from name" as you call it.

That hardly seems life-or-death.

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 03:54 PM

But that's not a personality yet. When you have a personality it will automatically do all those things for you without you having to select all those things manually... Just select the appropiate personality.

About the send to folder: so that's a setup with each account, not a personality-thing.

If I understand correctly it wouldn't be hard for Apple to implement it though... It just needs to be linked to eachother.

It's not a crucial feature, but it's damn handy. I'm using fastmail.fm for my webmail and they have support for it. It rocks.

cpac · Jul 29, 2003, 04:29 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
But that's not a personality yet. When you have a personality it will automatically do all those things for you without you having to select all those things manually... Just select the appropiate personality.

I'm not sure what you mean by "linked" at least when you refer to anything other that signature-account. The sent-mail folder *is* linked to the account.

Basically the only that that needs to be "linked" is signature with account, and that may already be a possibility (I'm not at home to check).

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 04:34 PM

nonono

An account is very different from a personality. An account can have multiple (endless) personalities.

IE: you have an AOL account with where you have multiple email addresses. For every email-address you setup a personality so that when you select a certain personality (business, personal, friends, family, whatever) it will use that email-address along with the corresponding username, signature, send-folder automatically.

Capiche?

cpac · 04:54 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
nonono

An account is very different from a personality. An account can have multiple (endless) personalities.

IE: you have an AOL account with where you have multiple email addresses. For every email-address you setup a personality so that when you select a certain personality (business, personal, friends, family, whatever) it will use that email-address along with the corresponding username, signature, send-folder automatically.

Capiche?

Nope dont get it yet.

I'll try to follow:

I have an AOL account. ok. (well not ok, I'd shoot myself, but anyway)
Multiple email addresses. - like screen names? Sure. Back in the day this is how my family used AOL - one paying screen name with the extras set up for individuals.

So...?

Thing is, each separate email address was the equivalent of a separate "account" in Mail. Each had its own username/password, etc.

So no I don't follow...

[edited for clarity]

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 04:55 PM

I know, but that's the flaw... You have to do it this way as a workaround. Why fill in the ISP configs (server, username, pwd etc...) for EVERY email address? It's like having to enter a new addressbook entry everytime when you have a friend that has multiple email addresses....

cpac · Jul 29, 2003, 05:01 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
Why fill in the ISP configs (server, username, pwd etc...) for EVERY email address?

So you can download messages sent to each address?

It's not that hard to do...

It's like having to enter a new addressbook entry everytime when you have a friend that has multiple email addresses....

Again, I don't follow...

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 05:08 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
So you can download messages sent to each address?

It's not that hard to do...

Again, I don't follow...

*sigh*, I give up... It's a wellknown feature. Lots of email-clients implement it as well ass webbased apps. Maybe some natural english speaking people can explain better

cpac · Jul 29, 2003, 05:25 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
*sigh*, I give up... It's a wellknown feature. Lots of email-clients implement it as well ass webbased apps. Maybe some natural english speaking people can explain better

I guess I'm just not understanding how one account has multiple personalities.

Is it that replies to different email addresses all end up in the same in-box? or what?

Maybe you could point me towards a email client that supports "personalities" so I can figure out what you mean...

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 05:43 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
I guess I'm just not understanding how one account has multiple personalities.

Is it that replies to different email addresses all end up in the same in-box? or what?

Maybe you could point me towards a email client that supports "personalities" so I can figure out what you mean...

No, it's just that you can adapt a different personality with one click.

Select the 'personal' personality and your email will be send with the corresponding reply-to address, name, signature and filed in the corresponding send-folder.

Selecting the 'business' personality (those are just examples) will use the other corresponding settings. In one click that is, rather than selecting the from email-address, signature, from-name, save-to folder all separately.

It's not really that advanced, just makes your life easier.

I think Windows' Outlook can do this although I'm not quite sure.

Ilja · Jul 29, 2003, 06:33 PM

you can setup a (free) Fastmail-account to see how it works as well btw. Getting an account with them is reccommandable anyway

cpac · Jul 29, 2003, 08:13 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
No, it's just that you can adapt a different personality with one click.

Select the 'personal' personality and your email will be send with the corresponding reply-to address, name, signature and filed in the corresponding send-folder.

Selecting the 'business' personality (those are just examples) will use the other corresponding settings. In one click that is, rather than selecting the from email-address, signature, from-name, save-to folder all separately.

It's not really that advanced, just makes your life easier.

Ok, I understand more now.

Really though, it's just a matter of selecting the email and signature (the folder thing can be linked to the account you're sending from, so you just select it once and never have to do it again).

Also mail nicely sets the email account of replies to the email that was addressed, thereby avoiding having to set anything except the signature whenever you're replying...