Thunderbird not using Default outging server in From field causes problems
I have one default outgoing server (gmail) in Thunderbird and am using multiple email addresses. However, every time I go to send an email, it places the top most return address (hotmail) in the From field. I want the gmail address to be the only possible choice there. Even though I went in and set each address to use the gmail outgoing server, it slows the send down and sometimes will not copy to the sent folder because it is trying to copy it to the Hotmail sent folder which sometimes kicks it out. I just want it to be the same address (gmail) using the same server (gmail). What am I missing? I don't want top have to scroll through the list everytime to get the gmail address.
Chosen solution
pmruzicka said
every time I go to send an email, it places the top most return address (hotmail) in the From field.
Sounds like your hotmail account is the default account in your Thunderbird profile. You can change this by going to Tools > Account Settings, on the left pane, select/highlight the account that you want to be the default, then click the Account Actions drop-down at the bottom of the left pane then choose Set as Default. The new default account will be underlined. Click OK to close Account Settings. Next time you re-open Account Settings, the new default account will be at the top of the list in the left pane. Restart Thunderbird and the new default account will be at the top of the list in the Folder Pane. If you click Write, to compose a message, the default identity of the default account will automatically be selected in the From field.
I want the gmail address to be the only possible choice there.
Not possible as long as you have multiple accounts added to Tbird. What you see in the From field list are identities, not the outgoing server. Each account has a default identity assigned to it. You can have multiple identities for one account, and all of them will appear on that list.
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (10)
Best if you remove that attachment showing your real emails
For Each Inbox you have on TBird you can select the outgoing Server
Tools>Options>Account Settings
At the bottom of the page Outgoing Server Choose the one you want for Each Inbox
Like I said - only one outgoing server is set up there.
Chosen Solution
pmruzicka said
every time I go to send an email, it places the top most return address (hotmail) in the From field.
Sounds like your hotmail account is the default account in your Thunderbird profile. You can change this by going to Tools > Account Settings, on the left pane, select/highlight the account that you want to be the default, then click the Account Actions drop-down at the bottom of the left pane then choose Set as Default. The new default account will be underlined. Click OK to close Account Settings. Next time you re-open Account Settings, the new default account will be at the top of the list in the left pane. Restart Thunderbird and the new default account will be at the top of the list in the Folder Pane. If you click Write, to compose a message, the default identity of the default account will automatically be selected in the From field.
I want the gmail address to be the only possible choice there.
Not possible as long as you have multiple accounts added to Tbird. What you see in the From field list are identities, not the outgoing server. Each account has a default identity assigned to it. You can have multiple identities for one account, and all of them will appear on that list.
Thank you thank you thank you. Worked like a charm. You are the best!
You are most welcome.
I still have an issue. The Compose mail is fine, but I still have an issue when I Reply to a message. I thought maybe because it was sent to one of the other addresses but that is not the case. Email sent to my main address is still not placing the default outgoing in the From box WHEN I REPLY.
pmruzicka Question owner said
Email sent to my main address is still not placing the default outgoing in the From box WHEN I REPLY.
Like I said before, what you see in the From field (the drop-down list of names and addresses) are NOT the outgoing server that you've configured on Thunderbird. They are identities that you have configured on Thunderbird. Each account that you add to Tbird has a default identity associated with it. When you add an account, one identity is automatically created for that account and set as default. You can add more indentities to the same account afterwards and set whichever you prefer as the default. Each identity has it's own outgoing server, which can be different from the outgoing servers of other identities. I hope this clears up the misunderstanding between outgoing server and identities.
Now, your main (default; gmail) account currently has one identity which is automatically set as the default. It is highly unlikely that any other identity is placed in the From field when replying to messages recieved by the same account, unless the message was forwarded to that main account from your secondary accounts.
I understand that. However, the email sends but goes out way slower, and it tries to copy the email to the Sent folder of the email address that is NOT the Default server and that bogs it down even more. If I switch the From field to my main address, email goes out quick and is copied to my main Sent email's folder extremely fast. So even if it is using the correct and default outgoing server, there are things slowing down the whole process of sending an email when the From field has one of the other email addresses in it. This now only happens when I reply to an email I received - and it does not matter where it was received from.
Using the Gmail smtp server to send mail using a different identity (alias) will always give you problems, unless you add those identities to Gmail as "send as" addresses. See https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22370?hl=en for details. If you want to send emails using a hotmail address as the From (send as) address using the Gmail outgoing server, you should add the hotmail address to Gmail as described in that article.
Regarding the copying of sent items, you need to uncheck this setting for both Gmail and Outlook/hotmail account on Tbird because this is automatically done by the outgoing server.
This didn't help. So I'll just live with it.