Displaying my From: account in outgoing email

[John Elliott]

I have about eight different accounts. I use specific ones for writing to
specific folks. However, despite what my default is set at, sometimes I end
up sending an email to someone FROM the "wrong" account. This is because
while I can see the To:, CC:, and BCC: fields at the top of my email, I
cannot see the To: field unless I go to the Accounts dropdown.

Is there any way to make the From: field always display in my email as I am
composing it?

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply to this query.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I have about eight different accounts. I use specific ones for
writing to specific folks. However, despite what my default is set
at, sometimes I end up sending an email to someone FROM the "wrong"
account. This is because while I can see the To:, CC:, and BCC:
fields at the top of my email, I cannot see the To: field unless I go
to the Accounts dropdown.

Is there any way to make the From: field always display in my email
as I am composing it?

Unless you are using Exchange, the From field has no significance. Even if
you are, I believe the From field will be empty unless you change it.

 

[John Elliott]

Brian,

I'm either not making myself clear, or I'm saying the wrong thing. To me, th
From field *does* have significance, since not all of my email accounts are
labeled with *my* name. Some have *joke* names (and some of those are
historical people).

As I see this issue, the From field in an outgoing mail from me can come
from any of my eight accounts. My main account is set as the default. But,
*sometimes* I inadvertantly send an email to a friend and instead of coming
from "jelliott" it comes from "Henrik Ibsen" (for example--an email account I
use as a joke with a few friends.

If the reciever is not one of those friends in on the joke, it's confusing
to recieve email from "Henrik Ibsen."

If the From field were displayed at the top of my email, thus--

From:
To:
CC:
BCC:
Subject:

I could more easily catch those stray times when Outlook 2003 tries to send
it from the wrong account.

Right now, however, I have to check the "Accounts..." dropdown. Yet, I've
never "caught" the checkmark being next to anything but my default account.

Is that clearer or am I just further muddying the waters?

--John

 

[Brian Tillman]

I'm either not making myself clear, or I'm saying the wrong thing. To
me, th From field *does* have significance, since not all of my email
accounts are labeled with *my* name. Some have *joke* names (and some
of those are historical people).

As I see this issue, the From field in an outgoing mail from me can
come from any of my eight accounts. My main account is set as the
default. But, *sometimes* I inadvertantly send an email to a friend
and instead of coming from "jelliott" it comes from "Henrik Ibsen"
(for example--an email account I use as a joke with a few friends.

Perhaps I'm not making MYSELF clear. The sender address (what your
recipients see in their From field) is not controlled by the From field in
Outlook when you have POP accounts. It is controlled by the "Your Name" and
"E-mail Address" settings in the account from which you send that message.

If the reciever is not one of those friends in on the joke, it's
confusing to recieve email from "Henrik Ibsen."

Then don't use joke names.

If the From field were displayed at the top of my email, thus--

From:
To:
CC:
BCC:
Subject:

I could more easily catch those stray times when Outlook 2003 tries
to send it from the wrong account.

The From field does not control the sending account. Period. If you
display the From field, it will be empty no matter what account you use as
long as you don't enter anything in it and your receipients will see the
"Your Name" and "E-mail Address" values from that account. If you so enter
something in it, your recipients will see "From <from contents> on behalf of
<account address>" (or the other way around - I can't remember at this
moment and I can't test it). The headers will include a From header and a
Sender header, with the former containing the From value you included and
the latter containing the account address.

Right now, however, I have to check the "Accounts..." dropdown. Yet,
I've never "caught" the checkmark being next to anything but my
default account.

Perhaps the issue is that Outlook will always reply to a message using the
account with which the original message was received. If your multiple
accounts access the same mailbox on the ISP, a message could be received by
an account you're not expecting and when you reply, the message will be send
from that account.

 

[John Elliott]

Let me preface this reply by saying I'm getting testy now. I came here asking
a question that I thought had a Yes/No answer. If Yes, then the solution
would be provided; if No, then I guess No would be enough.

If I am supposed to take the replies so far provided as *implying* the
answer (which seems to be "No, what you want isn't possible"), I am not
willing to accept it as an answer since it was not directly stated--and
therefore I am left to only assume I understood, and understood correctly.

And because I can't seen to get a Yes or a No, I am getting testy about the
needless technical "response" I AM being offered, because it doesn't address
my concern directly.

The sender address (what your
recipients see in their From field) is not controlled by the From field in
Outlook when you have POP accounts. It is controlled by the "Your Name" and
"E-mail Address" settings in the account from which you send that message.

Okay, you lost me there. Sounds like semantics with the end result still
being the same thing I'm complaining about: that there is no way for me to
know which "Your Name/Email Account" Outlook is choosing to put into the
header of my sent email unless I check it each time by using the Accounts
dropdown.

Then don't use joke names.

I hope you are not saying that having a humorous exchange between friends is
should not be allowed in email if the exchange makes use of "false" sender
names; that email is too serious a forum for such activity.

Perhaps the issue is that Outlook will always reply to a message using the
account with which the original message was received.

So, let me drop the joke name issue and approach this from a different
(-sounding) angle. One of the other accounts that comes into my Inbox is for
my eight year old. Let's call this account "Frieda Reichman" (assuming that
my child is named that). Email for "Frieda Reichman" ([email protected]) comes
into my Inbox because the kids do not have email currently on their computer.
If my child replies to this email for "Frieda Reichman," and I come along
later and send out an email, Outlook defaults to sending the email from the
"Frieda Reichman" account--which clearly isn't what I want to do.

I just want to be able to see, the same way I see the To, CC and BCC fields,
which account Outlook is sending this email from.

The From field does not control the sending account. Period.

Again, you lost me there.

If I compose an email and use the Accounts dropdown to *choose* the "Frieda
Reichman" account (instead of the default with is labeled with my name), then
that email gets sent "FROM" that account as far as I am concerned. Witness
this header on an email I recieved back:

From: Henrick Ibsen [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 9:29 PM
To: Xxxxx Xxxxxx (E-mail)
Subject: Dear Diary

In what way is that "Henrik Ibsen" account NOT the FROM field when someone
else recieves the email from me? And when I go to reply to such an email?

If you
display the From field, it will be empty no matter what account you use as
long as you don't enter anything in it and your receipients will see the
"Your Name" and "E-mail Address" values from that account. If you so enter
something in it, your recipients will see "From <from contents> on behalf of
<account address>" (or the other way around - I can't remember at this
moment and I can't test it). The headers will include a From header and a
Sender header, with the former containing the From value you included and
the latter containing the account address.

Again you lose me in this supposedly technical description. But...

This sounds like you actually don't understand my issue at all. You might be
completely correct about what happens behind the scenes in Outlook, but as
far as outwardly-appearing cause-and-effect are concerned, from my point of
view (witness the header sample above) such "correctness" misses my point
entirely.


So, in the end, it seems I'm asking for something that Outlook canNOT do--at
least not in the way I would like (therefore, I guess it is a wishlist item
of mine).

Sigh... I still see this as a simple issue that could have a simple solution
(other than my having to check the Accounts dropdown each time I send an
email to make sure Outlook hasn't changed from my default to whatever other
account of mine someone has recently replied to me at and from which I have
sent a reply.)

--John

 

[John Elliott]

Let me preface this reply by saying I'm getting testy now. I came here asking
a question that I thought had a Yes/No answer. If Yes, then the solution
would be provided; if No, then I guess No would be enough.

If I am supposed to take the replies so far provided as *implying* the
answer (which seems to be "No, what you want isn't possible"), I am not
willing to accept it as an answer since it was not directly stated--and
therefore I am left to only assume I understood, and understood correctly.

And because I can't seen to get a Yes or a No, I am getting testy about the
needless technical "response" I AM being offered, because it doesn't address
my concern directly.

The sender address (what your
recipients see in their From field) is not controlled by the From field in
Outlook when you have POP accounts. It is controlled by the "Your Name" and
"E-mail Address" settings in the account from which you send that message.

Okay, you lost me there. Sounds like semantics with the end result still
being the same thing I'm complaining about: that there is no way for me to
know which "Your Name/Email Account" Outlook is choosing to put into the
header of my sent email unless I check it each time by using the Accounts
dropdown.

Then don't use joke names.

I hope you are not saying that having a humorous exchange between friends is
should not be allowed in email if the exchange makes use of "false" sender
names; that email is too serious a forum for such activity.

Perhaps the issue is that Outlook will always reply to a message using the
account with which the original message was received.

So, let me drop the joke name issue and approach this from a different
(-sounding) angle. One of the other accounts that comes into my Inbox is for
my eight year old. Let's call this account "Frieda Reichman" (assuming that
my child is named that). Email for "Frieda Reichman" ([email protected]) comes
into my Inbox because the kids do not have email currently on their computer.
If my child replies to this email for "Frieda Reichman," and I come along
later and send out an email, Outlook defaults to sending the email from the
"Frieda Reichman" account--which clearly isn't what I want to do.

I just want to be able to see, the same way I see the To, CC and BCC fields,
which account Outlook is sending this email from.

The From field does not control the sending account. Period.

Again, you lost me there.

If I compose an email and use the Accounts dropdown to *choose* the "Frieda
Reichman" account (instead of the default with is labeled with my name), then
that email gets sent "FROM" that account as far as I am concerned. Witness
this header on an email I recieved back:

From: Henrick Ibsen [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 9:29 PM
To: Xxxxx Xxxxxx (E-mail)
Subject: Dear Diary

In what way is that "Henrik Ibsen" account NOT the FROM field when someone
else recieves the email from me? And when I go to reply to such an email?

If you
display the From field, it will be empty no matter what account you use as
long as you don't enter anything in it and your receipients will see the
"Your Name" and "E-mail Address" values from that account. If you so enter
something in it, your recipients will see "From <from contents> on behalf of
<account address>" (or the other way around - I can't remember at this
moment and I can't test it). The headers will include a From header and a
Sender header, with the former containing the From value you included and
the latter containing the account address.

Again you lose me in this supposedly technical description. But...

This sounds like you actually don't understand my issue at all. You might be
completely correct about what happens behind the scenes in Outlook, but as
far as outwardly-appearing cause-and-effect are concerned, from my point of
view (witness the header sample above) such "correctness" misses my point
entirely.


So, in the end, it seems I'm asking for something that Outlook canNOT do--at
least not in the way I would like (therefore, I guess it is a wishlist item
of mine).

Sigh... I still see this as a simple issue that could have a simple solution
(other than my having to check the Accounts dropdown each time I send an
email to make sure Outlook hasn't changed from my default to whatever other
account of mine someone has recently replied to me at and from which I have
sent a reply.)

--John

 

[Brian Tillman]

And because I can't seen to get a Yes or a No, I am getting testy
about the needless technical "response" I AM being offered, because
it doesn't address my concern directly.

Perhaps this will be clear enough for you: forget the "From" field. Select
the sending address with the Account button.

 

[Greg Neff]

Perhaps this will be clear enough for you: forget the "From" field. Select
the sending address with the Account button.

OK, I know *exactly* what the OP is complaining about, because I have
the same problem on an intermittent basis.

If, while composing an e-mail, I select an account other than the
default, then a line appears stating "This message will be sent via
(e-mail address removed)". After composing and sending the e-mail, I discover that
the e-mail was in fact sent by one of the other accounts in the list.

There should be a warning before an e-mail is sent under an account
other than that selected while composing the e-mail.

I am using Outlook 2003 (11.8010.8107) SP2

Greg Neff

 

[Brian Tillman]

There should be a warning before an e-mail is sent under an account
other than that selected while composing the e-mail.

I am using Outlook 2003 (11.8010.8107) SP2

I was under the impression that the version you cite was supposed to, in
fact, contain such a warning. There was a problem in OL 2003 whereby if it
had trouble sending a message by the specified account, it would silently
use a different account. SP2 specifically contained a fix for this. From
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906451/en-us :