I have several different email accounts, and I have Outlook 2003 configured to handle all of them. One of them, of course, is the "default" account. But try as I might, when I send mail using that account in gets sent using one of the others. Why?
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.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - How should I setup Outlook?
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Ask Leo! - How do I send mail from my mail forwarded address?
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Ask Leo! - How can I organize incoming email from two accounts?
Article C2429 - October 6, 2005
I have a related problem - also very frustrating. I am using Outlook 2003 and have 3 email accounts. I am tryinbg to set up an automatic signature for each one - the problem is it will only apply the signature on the default account and not on the others...can you help? Thx!
Posted by: Carol at July 9, 2008 9:14 AMi keep getting a log in box coming up, i have not changed anything, i am suing streamnet web site and they are forwarding all my email to me know, but this keeps coming up
There was a problem logging onto your mail server. Your Password was rejected. Account: 'mail.#############, Server: 'mail.###########, Protocol: POP3, Server Response: '-ERR Authentication failed.', Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0x800CCC90, Error Number: 0x800CCC92
Posted by: mandy at September 18, 2008 12:22 PMI have a similar issue with Outlook 2003, where, let's say for example, I receive an e-mail on my engineering business e-mail account. I hit 'reply' and Outlook is composing and sending on one of my personal accounts, or vica-versa, where I am responding to a personal e-mail on a personal account, and Outlook responds using the business account. It's very messy and really mixes things up. Plus there's some times when you're in a political debate with a bunch of folks with cc'd mailing lists, and you don't want your company e-mail in there, but Outlook will slip you up. 49 out of 50 times, I remember to manually set the sending account, but that 1 time in 50, I forget to check and it makes quite a mess of things.
How can we set up Outlook so it will reply using the e-mail account that the replied-to mail was sent to?
Posted by: Mark Weiss at September 29, 2008 12:55 AMUsing Outlook 2003, I have two of the accounts I have set up showing in my Folders List, I set up 5 accounts, how can I see them all? The two I see are hotmail and ATT but all 3 yahoo accounts are hidden somewhere.. and I am running YPops.
Posted by: K Lancaster at October 1, 2008 6:33 AMThanks Leo,
Posted by: Pieter van Kampen at October 9, 2008 9:59 AMFrankly I think this is a bug. I had it in Office 2003, and now it appears in Office 2007 as well.
I have various POP accounts (Business/hobby) and they have exactly the same account settings. They all work.
In some cases a mail sent to my work account, when I create a reply, Outlook already selects the hobby account. It says in the draft "This message will be sent through ". So the error is made at the moment of reply, in my case it is not made while actually sending it.
Found it (for my problem at least)!
Posted by: Pieter van Kampen at October 9, 2008 10:17 AMHere is how to reproduce:
create two pop accounts a@work.com and b@hobby.com. Both domains refer to the same email mail box. So both accounts in Outlook read from the same mail box. The first accounts wipes the box, so there are no more mails to read for the second. The reason to set it up this way, is that it allows me to send emails from either a@work.com or a@hobby.com.
Now for reasons not important here, I sometimes want to keep the messages in the pop box. It means both account read from it, with the result that I have the message twice in my inbox. Both messages appear to be identical, both are address to the same account (say a@work.com), but one is read by the work account and one by the hobby account. If I now reply the message that is ended up in my mailbox by the hobby account, Outlook puts in a@hobby.com instead of a@work.com, even though the messages was send to a@work.com.
The work around for this bug is to use Tools, Options, Mail Setup, press Send/Receive, select All Accounts, press Edit. Then remove the checkbox of "Receive mail items" of all but the first pop account. In this way, I never get more than one copy of the email, even when it is left on the server
I have 3 pop emails and I'm trying to migrate them all to my default account. I know that with any email that comes through I can manually choose my default account to reply from. However, I don't always remember to do this. Can I make it so Outlook AUTOMATICALLY replies from my default account, even when the Email was originally directed to one of the other ones? Basically any email that I receive and reply to from any of the 3 accounts, replies from default?
Thanks in advance!
Posted by: Brian at May 20, 2009 11:44 AMHi... Does anyone know of a plug in which would prompt you to select the 'send from account' before sending the email?
Posted by: Charles at September 1, 2009 1:16 AMThx
Anyone know how to set outlook up so that when creating a new email, if you have a specific imap folder inbox selected, that it uses that account for sending the mail by default? I know it works that way with forwards and replies, but any way for new mail?
Posted by: Scott at September 1, 2009 12:36 PMSame question as Scott - If you have a specific inbox selected, how can you make Outlook use that account when you click 'New' to compose a message?
23-Sep-2009
Posted by: Greg at September 22, 2009 12:19 PM