Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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OK, that was me, this morning, asking the question. I was tearing my hair out trying to send an email to a members-only discussion list, and no matter that I explicitly told Outlook to use the account that I use on that list, it insisted on using one of the others. Silently, of course.
The answer surprised me.
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Outlook 2003, and previous versions, can be configured to send and receive email using many different accounts on any number of mail servers. I have several accounts myself. In fact a friend was updating my information in her address book recently and told me that she had four separate email addresses for me. My response was "Only four?".
When you have multiple accounts configured in Outlook, the account that's used to send mail varies based on several things:
- When you compose a new email, Outlook uses the email account that you've configured as your default.
- When you reply or forward an email, Outlook uses the email account that the message was originally received on.
- In either case, you can explicitly specify the account to use via the Accounts drop down item that appears next to the message's send button.
I did that later step repeatedly. In test email after test email, I explicitly told Outlook to use a specific account. Outlook apparently ignored my request, and used a different account anyway.
As it turns out Outlook will, under certain conditions, select a different outgoing email account if it has trouble sending on the designated account. Of course it does this silently.
My solution was to visit the configuration for the account I was having trouble with, and send a test email. It asked me for a password, which I knew it shouldn't have. In my case, the sending authorization configuration for this account had been mistakenly changed to "Log on to incoming mail server before sending mail". That's not how my mail server is configured. Changing the configuration to "Use the same settings as my incoming mail server" resolved the issue.
Needless to say it was not obvious, and very frustrating.
So the lesson here is simple: if Outlook suddenly starts sending using the wrong account, check your ability to send via the right account. There might be a problem there.
Article C2429 - October 6, 2005 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
December 3, 2010 2:05 AM
"When you reply or forward an email, Outlook uses the email account that the message was originally received on." - not true.
It replies based on where the mail is currently positioned. Try this yourself by having two accounts, move a message from A to B and respond. It does not choose to send from A (where it was recieved on) but B (where it currently resides).
If you archive from A to B (which is an imap account, if it is a local archive, the archive is bound to an imap/exchange-account) and decides to respond to it later, it will try to sent from b. If B is an archive-server (simplifies backups) which won't send email, you're screwed.
February 24, 2011 9:45 AM
Did anyone ever solve this? I have exactly the same problem: Outlook is sending from an email address I do not have set up. I tested it and it can even send from an account that I do not have - anywhere.
Any help gratefully received - thanks.
May 4, 2011 10:44 AM
Your article above was informative as I am not facing that particular problem right now. I have a different problem here...
I supervise a small department in my company where I am the only person who is allowed to send or receive external emails because of security and intellectual rights issues. Now the problem is when I am not around communication get impossible and work has to go on. So, in pursuit of a solution, I tried to setup rules in outlook in such a way that when a message arrives with a specific word in subject it is forwarded to a specific person in my group automatically. It worked fine. I have multiple pop3 accounts configures in my outlook + an exchange server account of the company which serves internal communication only. My exchange account is the default account. When messages came in, rules triggered and messages got forwarded appropriately through my exchange account to other exchange email internally. I decided to try the same method to send emails out where my team members will send my local exchange account their email and include a particular code in their subject. I set up rules which run based on the code in the subject line and message then get forwarded to the appropriate external email. The glitch here is that my local exchange account cannot send emails outside of company domain and that is my default account. So, please help me by explaining how can I make rules that will use a specific account from my outlook when automatically forwarding/ redirecting email based on rules.
thanks.
July 5, 2011 3:01 AM
I was having trouble getting the default account to behave as I defined it. Turns out the problem went away when I removed the add-on "ODIR.exe" Outlook Duplicate Item Remover. The tool was great at helping me to locate and remove duplicate emails, contacts ...
After I removed it, my Outlook 2003 default user setting began working correctly.
The comments from Morgen regarding getkigoo add-on led me to this resolution. Thanks for the post -Ron
July 3, 2012 11:54 PM
Hi, slightly different thing here: I hate that Outlook 2003 has a default account to send mail. I run 3 email accounts under outlook and would like to get the respective email account to send in which inbox I am. in other words: no matter in which Inbox I am outlook sends with default account. Its cumbersome to take the drop down everytime when you create a new mail. isnt there a way that outlook automatically picks the account for sending mail in which inbox I am at the time are ? thx