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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > Specifying NO default account in Mail

Specifying NO default account in Mail
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elipsett
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Mar 15, 2016, 03:44 AM
 
I have half a dozen accounts in Mail, under Yosemite, and sometimes send an email from the wrong address.

It would be convenient if I could set Mail to have no default sender address/account at all, forcing me to set the correct one every time.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
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Edward Lipsett
Kumamoto, Japan
     
ibook_steve
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Mar 15, 2016, 03:39 PM
 
Just select the account in the From field. I don't think there's a way to do what you're asking in Mail.

Steve
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reader50
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Mar 15, 2016, 06:03 PM
 
I have the same annoyance. I just tried to solve it in Mail Prefs, by setting all the accounts to an outgoing mail server of 'None'.

If I leave the 'Use only this server' box unchecked, I'd expect Mail to ask each time you send a message. Instead, it ignores my 'None' setting and uses an outgoing server from the list.

If I check the box to 'Use only this server' (the None server) then Mail finally pops up a dialog when you send a message. But the choices are to Always Use This Server, or Edit Message (meaning Cancel). There is no button to 'Send Using This Server This Time'.

This is on Yosemite btw. You could try this, see if El Cap adds the missing button. Of if it forces a dialog with the 'Use only this server' box unchecked.
     
elipsett  (op)
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Mar 15, 2016, 08:32 PM
 
I'd be happy to talk to someone about coding a way around this, because it is a royal PITA.
Yes, for money.
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Edward Lipsett
Kumamoto, Japan
     
ghporter
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Mar 16, 2016, 07:55 PM
 
I too have multiple accounts with Mail. The default account on my iPad is the one I use more often for personal stuff, on my iMac it's one of my professional accounts, and on my MBP it's an account I use for hobby stuff. All I have to do is pay attention to which account Mail says the message will be sent from, and I don't have any problems. It's not ideal, and maybe I should set all of my versions of Mail to use the same default account, but it's not that big a hassle.

In any case, even if you had "no" default account, you'd have to manually select some account to originate a message from; statistically, having a default account means that you have a chance (odds unknown at this point) of having the account you want to use show up automatically when you create a message. Do you have dozens of accounts you'd have to scroll through in order to pick the one you want to use? Just how inconvenient is selecting the account you want?

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
elipsett  (op)
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Mar 16, 2016, 08:07 PM
 
Yes, I do want to scroll through all my accounts and select the right one.
It's not a question of inconvenience; when I'm working and need to do six things at once, accidents happen. Making it much harder to send from the wrong account would save me a lot of problems later.

There is a reason for having multiple accounts, and if recipients start sending me email at arbitrary addresses, I may not be able to receive them on time.
In addition, many people have whitelisted me at a specific address, and email from other addresses would be shunted elsewhere, perhaps to wait a day or two until the recipient got around to looking at it.

None of this is good for business.
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Edward Lipsett
Kumamoto, Japan
     
reader50
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Mar 16, 2016, 10:18 PM
 
Similar here, I make mistakes when I'm in a hurry. Mail will send from the account you were last looking at. But if I have to send an email suddenly, it's likely unrelated to whatever I was looking at a half hour ago. So the outgoing message comes up on a "random" box.

It's not really random of course, but I've switched mental gears long since. If I don't remember to double check, I send from the wrong box. It doesn't happen every day or even every week. But it slips through often enough that I'd love to have the safety check.

How are you guys selecting a default mail account? If I'm not in a specific account, Compose will come up in the uppermost account in the left pane. I can drag those into a desired order, but Mail occasionally forgets and reorders the accounts. I haven't found a way to specify a default account, nor to lock in the accounts display order.
     
   
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