thunderbird changes 'from' address befoe sending

[fourtwentyfour]

I use Thunderbird with 8 mail accounts including gmail, hotmail and a paid domain name/email address. I have some emails in the local folder in storage. Sometimes I want to forward one from the local folder, so I add my wanted address, some message, and send it.

However, when sent it appears in the first email account in the list, a gmail account, and the 'from' address has been changed to match that account, overwriting the specified one.

Does anyone know why this happens, and what a cure is? (Dragging the base email out of local and putting it into the wanted email address would work, but it is messy and I would forget to do it. I just want to alter a setting so it doesn't happen.)

Thanks.

[mc2fool]

I use Thunderbird with 8 mail accounts including gmail, hotmail and a paid domain name/email address. I have some emails in the local folder in storage. Sometimes I want to forward one from the local folder, so I add my wanted address, some message, and send it.

But do you select the From: address you want it to go out from in the drop-down list at the top of the message panel (just above To:)?

[Urbandreamer]

However, when sent it appears in the first email account in the list, a gmail account, and the 'from' address has been changed to match that account, overwriting the specified one.

Thanks.

I had never seen a email client that allowed you to change the "From" field. I tried it on my copy of T-bird and got a message that it was only possible if the ISP allowed it. My ISP (talktalk) gave me an error, MailFrom must match AUTH used (TT421), when I sent it. Possibly your ISP replaces the "From" field with your login credentials if they don't match.

The way that I have seen things done in the past is by adding the "Reply to" field and putting the appropriate address in that. Replies go to that address and historically some email clients use to also display the email as "from" that address. Investigating the email header though allowed you to see where it had really been sent from and T-bird still shows the mail sent from the sending address.

[Infrasonic]

Try forwarding emails with their own parent SMTP settings?

So to forward a Gmail to a Hotmail address use the Gmail SMTP send, that way you won't run into any spoofing (authorisation) issues. I don't use the TB client very often so don't know the settings well - but if not possible there then just do it from the appropriate webmail account via the browser (which will already be configured that way). I'm presuming you are using IMAP and leave all your emails on the webmail servers with a copy synced to TB?

It will also help with successful email delivery for your original sent emails as all the addresses from major email players like Gmail/Outlook.live.com (aka Hotmail) will then have fully compliant SPF/DKIM/DMARC/ARC reputation paths and (hopefully) not get flagged as spam by the receive end.

[kyu66]

I use Thunderbird with 8 mail accounts including gmail, hotmail and a paid domain name/email address. I have some emails in the local folder in storage. Sometimes I want to forward one from the local folder, so I add my wanted address, some message, and send it.

However, when sent it appears in the first email account in the list, a gmail account, and the 'from' address has been changed to match that account, overwriting the specified one.

Does anyone know why this happens, and what a cure is? (Dragging the base email out of local and putting it into the wanted email address would work, but it is messy and I would forget to do it. I just want to alter a setting so it doesn't happen.)

Thanks.

As mc2fool posted, you can choose the send from address via the drop down list. I do this all the time but you must have identities set up with the appropriate SMTP settings.

[fourtwentyfour]

Thanks for the repies, but they don't help me.. it's hard to explain the issue.

The email I tried to forward was one I had sent from my own domain address in the past, the to and from addresses were the same in the forward to those in the one being sent.

In other words I was sending the same email again, from me, again, to them, again.

The difference was that instead of being in the 'my own domain' email folder, the email to be forwarded was in the local folder. Althought the from address was correct, as it was being sent this address changed on its own to that of the first email account in my list.

This has happened before, and it doesn't matter the original from address, it is always replaced by the offending gmail one.

As I write, I am beginning to wonder if the local folders choose to sit, or associate themselves, with the first email address that thunderbird was setup with? Although

All my email addresses are non-isp, ie gmail, hotmil and Ionus.

The advantage of thunderbird is that I see only emails, no junk, compared to web based email. Is there a better client than thunderbird? (Thunderbird is open on my pc, it doesn't need a password which is a disavantage.)

Thanks

[mc2fool]

The email I tried to forward was one I had sent from my own domain address in the past, the to and from addresses were the same in the forward to those in the one being sent.

In other words I was sending the same email again, from me, again, to them, again.

The difference was that instead of being in the 'my own domain' email folder, the email to be forwarded was in the local folder. Althought the from address was correct, as it was being sent this address changed on its own to that of the first email account in my list.

This has happened before, and it doesn't matter the original from address, it is always replaced by the offending gmail one.

It's not at all clear which "From" address you are referring to. It reads like you could be referring to the from addresses within the message being forwarded, and hence my prior question, which you haven't answered.

So, again, do you select the From: address you want it to go out from in the drop-down list at the top of the message panel (just above To:)?
I.e. do you click on the "John Doe <john.doe@example.com>" to select and change which of your email addresses you want the message to be sent from?


Image adapted from https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/addressing-email

As I write, I am beginning to wonder if the local folders choose to sit, or associate themselves, with the first email address that thunderbird was setup with?

That is sort of correct. There are no identities associated with the local folders. (The John Doe above is an identity).

When you are within one of your email accounts (i.e. have it selected in the list) then on a Reply or Forward of the message you are looking at TBird will look at the address the message was sent to (not who it is from) and try and match it up with one of the identities you've set up for that email account. If it finds one then it will default the From selector (as above) to that address. If it doesn't find one then it will instead set it to the default identity for that email account. The latter is also what happens if you Write a new message.

However, local folders have no email account and no identities, so when you Reply or Forward a message within a local folder, or Write a new one while a local folder is selected, then it will default the From selector to the default identity of the default email account, which is the first one in the list.

If you don't want it to go from that address then you must choose a different one in the From selector.

[kyu66]

Thanks for the repies, but they don't help me.. it's hard to explain the issue.

The email I tried to forward was one I had sent from my own domain address in the past, the to and from addresses were the same in the forward to those in the one being sent.

In other words I was sending the same email again, from me, again, to them, again.

The difference was that instead of being in the 'my own domain' email folder, the email to be forwarded was in the local folder. Althought the from address was correct, as it was being sent this address changed on its own to that of the first email account in my list.

This has happened before, and it doesn't matter the original from address, it is always replaced by the offending gmail one.

As I write, I am beginning to wonder if the local folders choose to sit, or associate themselves, with the first email address that thunderbird was setup with? Although

All my email addresses are non-isp, ie gmail, hotmil and Ionus.

The advantage of thunderbird is that I see only emails, no junk, compared to web based email. Is there a better client than thunderbird? (Thunderbird is open on my pc, it doesn't need a password which is a disavantage.)

Thanks

I think I a can replicate what you are seeing:
Send from A to B
Store mail in local folder
View local folder
Forward from A to C, From field shown as A, correspondents in TB shows as C
Forward from B to C, From field shown as B, correspondents in TB shows as C
Forward from A to B, From field shown as A but correspondents in TB shows as B.

It seems the headers in the email are correct, reply to etc, but TB gets the correspondents field from the original recipient.

It looks like it may be 'cleaner' to copy and paste the original mail, but this could be a quirk on only your own TB as opposed to recipients who presumably see the correct correspondent.

As for a better client than TB, I haven't found (a free) one, I have used it for years.

Re password protection a quick search throws up https://technical-tips.com/blog/softwar ... ect--18401 which uses an add-on, but I have no experience of it.

HTH