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I have a rather strange problem. I have 8 e-mail accounts in my Thunderbird, and I have 5 different "inboxes". So I have a main one that pulls from one account (we'll call this account #1), then my second one pulls from 3 accounts, the third pulls from 2 accounts, and the 4th and 5th each pull from a single account. I did this by using the Advanced button under Account Settings -> Server Settings to group the e-mail accounts such that they are associated with a certain inbox. There are no problems with e-mail getting to the right place when downloading them. I also use Get Selected Mails and Manually Sort Folders. The only other add-ons are Lightning and Smiley Fixer.

In most cases, when I click "reply" to a message, it will show the "from" field as the e-mail account to which the message was addressed, but this is not always the case.

For instance, on a message sent to account #1, if I just do "reply" it will insert the proper "from" address. If I select "reply all" to the same message, I get a different address - one from the 3rd inbox group, and not one I want to use! The address is uses is not the last one that was set up either, I have added the 4th and 5th inboxes since then.

Sometimes, when I am looking at a message in my second inbox, and I click to reply to a message sent to account A within that inbox, it will flip the "from" to account B.

I haven't summed up all of the issues I'm seeing, but they are all very similar. I'm sure that if I went through all the iterations I could figure out a pattern but I don't have the time. I've looked in the config file and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. In mail.accountmanager.accounts setting, the order of the accounts seems a bit random and intermingled. The main inbox is the first one, the second is one e-mail from the 2nd inbox, the third is an e-mail from the 3rd inbox, the fourth and fifth are e-mails from the 2nd inbox, the sixth is an e-mail from the 3rd inbox, the seventh and eighth don't seem to have an ID associated with them, and the ninth and tenth are the 4th and 5th accounts - the most recently set up.

I'm wondering if I have to just re-install Thunderbird and set all this up again from scratch because something seems seriously hosed here. The only thing that looks correct is that account 1 is ID 1 and server 1, and that is set as the default account in every way I can see but it doesn't work like that. All the other accounts/ID/server numbers are out of order, which I'm sure doesn't matter.

I have a rather strange problem. I have 8 e-mail accounts in my Thunderbird, and I have 5 different "inboxes". So I have a main one that pulls from one account (we'll call this account #1), then my second one pulls from 3 accounts, the third pulls from 2 accounts, and the 4th and 5th each pull from a single account. I did this by using the Advanced button under Account Settings -> Server Settings to group the e-mail accounts such that they are associated with a certain inbox. There are no problems with e-mail getting to the right place when downloading them. I also use Get Selected Mails and Manually Sort Folders. The only other add-ons are Lightning and Smiley Fixer. In most cases, when I click "reply" to a message, it will show the "from" field as the e-mail account to which the message was addressed, but this is not always the case. For instance, on a message sent to account #1, if I just do "reply" it will insert the proper "from" address. If I select "reply all" to the same message, I get a different address - one from the 3rd inbox group, and not one I want to use! The address is uses is not the last one that was set up either, I have added the 4th and 5th inboxes since then. Sometimes, when I am looking at a message in my second inbox, and I click to reply to a message sent to account A within that inbox, it will flip the "from" to account B. I haven't summed up all of the issues I'm seeing, but they are all very similar. I'm sure that if I went through all the iterations I could figure out a pattern but I don't have the time. I've looked in the config file and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. In mail.accountmanager.accounts setting, the order of the accounts seems a bit random and intermingled. The main inbox is the first one, the second is one e-mail from the 2nd inbox, the third is an e-mail from the 3rd inbox, the fourth and fifth are e-mails from the 2nd inbox, the sixth is an e-mail from the 3rd inbox, the seventh and eighth don't seem to have an ID associated with them, and the ninth and tenth are the 4th and 5th accounts - the most recently set up. I'm wondering if I have to just re-install Thunderbird and set all this up again from scratch because something seems seriously hosed here. The only thing that looks correct is that account 1 is ID 1 and server 1, and that is set as the default account in every way I can see but it doesn't work like that. All the other accounts/ID/server numbers are out of order, which I'm sure doesn't matter.

Chosen solution

I think this just uncovered a huge ball of wax type of issue. I have a feeling that this might have to do with the way I am transporting my "inboxes" from point to point.

The way it should be, account1, 12, and 13 are in their own inbox.

Account 4, 5, and 8 are grouped (4 is primary)

Account 10 and 11 are grouped (10 is primary)

In going through several message source codes (by the way I do not see a "other actions", I have to go view -> message source)

So if I look at the code for a message received into account 11, some of the code ties it to account11, and other messages are tied to account13

Similarly some messages to account10 have code that ties them to account10 and others to account12.

As I'm going through all my messages, I am now seeing the pattern.

When I am at home, and I receive an e-mail, the key ties it to the account number for which is it set up within that system. When I reply to this message from home, it works fine. When I transport that message to my work, then try to reply to that message, it sees the account key in the e-mail and uses that as the 'from', but this account key is linked to a different account.

I still haven't been able to figure out why there was a difference between the from address for a reply vs reply-to-all but now I can't recreate that either.

This may have to do with the fact that between when I first posed this question and now, I went on vacation and put all my e-mail onto a laptop which previously did not have TB on it, then transferred that back to my home computer when I returned, then back to work. So that my have reset the issue and caused the other ones that I am now seeing.

So now it's a big fat mess. I think the only way to fix this would be to go into the config editor of each computer and manually change the account ids so that they were synchronized on each machine, and then make sure that each machine had the exact same accounts set up. I have an additional 3 e-mail addresses on my home PC that I do not have on my work PC, and 2 of the work PC accounts I do not bring over to my home PC.

I don't see how this would easily get fixed unless I had all the settings on both PCs fully synchronized, instead of just synchronizing the mail folders. That seems to be causing the problem. On top of that, there is no way to fix the e-mails that I currently have, because the account keys are in the code. I would have to extract all the messages into individual .eml files using something like mbox to eml (which I have used before) and then manually editing the key in each message. Ugh.

What a mess!

Would using identities instead solve this? I don't think so...

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Still no one knows a possible answer or solution? Hello???

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That would be the answer to "how do I select which account to send from in a new message". That was not my question.

When I click "reply" to a message that was directed to account "A", it automatically assigns the reply to account "A". When I click "reply to all" to the same message, it assigns the reply to account "F" or something (always the same incorrect account). I shouldn't have to select the account to send from when I reply to a message.

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Please post info: In Thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'copy text to clipboard' paste info into this question remove/edit all info on fonts and printers. but nothing else.

Please state which account is set as default. It will appear at the top of your Folder Pane and Account Settings. Go into Tools > account Settings select the top mail account click on 'Account Actions' Is the 'set as default' greyed out? This means it is already set as default.

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Here is the requested information. account1 is the default account.

account 11 is the one it defaults to when I 'reply to all'

 Application Basics
   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 24.6.0
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.6.0
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 Mail and News Accounts
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     INCOMING: account1, , (pop3) pop.qwestoffice.net:110, plain, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: smtp.qwestoffice.net:587, plain, passwordCleartext, true
   account2:
     INCOMING: account2, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext
   account4:
     INCOMING: account4, , (pop3) svl01.mygoto.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: svl01.mygoto.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account5:
     INCOMING: account5, , (pop3) pop.googlemail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account8:
     INCOMING: account8, , (pop3) pop.googlemail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account10:
     INCOMING: account10, , (pop3) pop.googlemail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account11:
     INCOMING: account11, , (pop3) svl01.mygoto.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: svl01.mygoto.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account12:
     INCOMING: account12, , (pop3) pop.aol.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: smtp.aol.com:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, true
   account13:
     INCOMING: account13, , (pop3) pop.googlemail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
 Extensions
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   Manually sort folders, 1.1, true, tbsortfolders@xulforum.org
   Smiley Fixer, 1.3.2, true, smiley-fixer@richard.quirk
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Have you set up identities for each of the account that are "collected" in the one account?

Right click the account in the folder pane on the left and select settings then the identities button.

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re then my second one pulls from 3 accounts, the third pulls from 2 accounts,

Agree with Matt. None of your accounts show that you have actually set up any identites. Where one mail account has more than one email address which has those emails going into one mail account Inbox. here is info on 'identities':

Your supplied info says you have 8 separate mail accounts plus Local folders; each with their own Inbox.

So perhaps you can elaborate on eg: my second one pulls from 3 accounts. How are you achieving this?

Modified by Toad-Hall

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When I go to setting -> manage identities, there is one identity associated with each e-mail account, corresponding with the e-mail account address.

I had no idea and still have no idea what identities are, but haven't looked at the link - just going to answer the question about how I achieved this setup (on multiple computers)

I would open account settings -> account actions -> add mail account then set up the account, and if I wanted those e-mail to go to a different inbox, I would go to server settings -> advanced settings -> inbox for different account & select account -> check include server when getting mail. Then I would restart TB and the new inbox would go away in the folder pane, and when I checked e-mail anything for that new e-mail address would be routed to the designated inbox.

So the way I have it set up, I have 5 inboxes in the folder pane. Three are work-related, my .com, a gmail, and an old AOL account, all of which have one e-mail account associated with them. The .com account is the one that is exhibiting this effect.

The other 2 accounts are personal. Let's call one 'home' and one 'hobby'. 'home' has 3 e-mail accounts that dump into it, and 'hobby' has 2. So I have one directory on the hard drive that 'houses' all of these messages, and before I leave home for the office or vice versa, I synch these folders onto an external drive and synch again at the destination (i.e. I "carry" my inboxes back and forth). I also have done this on 2 separate laptops when travelling, I set up TB then shut it down then replace the info in the account directory (all of it, not just mail folder) and then start TB and I don't have to do anything, all my accounts and passwords are transferred, even message filters in most cases, slick as snot, which is why I love TB.

But it's just this one thing that seems to keep happening on and off that is bugging me. What's worse is that there is no consistency to is. Yesterday, I couldn't duplicate the problem, when a week ago, it was happening without fail.

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re: Three are work-related, my .com, a gmail, and an old AOL account, all of which have one e-mail account associated with them.

You have created 'Deferred' accounts. For the problem deferred mail account, which account numbers are using same deferred account? Is it 4, 5, 11 ?

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The problem account is account 11

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I should also clarify that this ONLY occurs when I am looking at an e-mail that is in Account 1 and I reply to it using reply to all.

There is currently no other instance where I reply to a message and "from" is changed to another e-mail address.

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I stand corrected. Now, when I go into the inbox that account11 dumps into, and reply to a message that was addresses to account11, is defaults the "from" address to account 1

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Also, I have a second gmail account that goes to the same inbox as account11. When I reply to a message that is in that folder, the 'from' defaults to account 12 (the aol address, which has it's own inbox)

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I just read up on "deferred" accounts and yes, this is exactly what I have done. It has worked without issue for me for quite a long time. I guess I have a hard time understanding why they would make 2 different ways to essentially do the same thing.

Anyways, hopefully the information I provided can shed light on what is happening and why.

Pouring through the config file is confusing, but I think I have figured out what it's doing. It's confusing when account12 is id7 on server9. Then I think I figured out that id5 is actually associated with 2 accounts - 7 and 8- and I have no idea why, it's like I set it up and then deleted it and then set it up again and the second time worked, so there's a 'hanging chad' but it doesn't affect anything.

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So if understand you Accounts with own mail account and own Inbox are, 1,12, 13

Account with deferred inbox: Account 4, 5, and 8 grouped Account 10 and 11 grouped

Is this correct?

In the account 11 group choose email, click on it so you can read it

  • which account number (email address) was the email sent to - is it, 11 or 10 ?

click on 'Other Actions' and select 'View Source' at the top it will say 'X-Account-Key:

  • what account number does it show?

click on 'Reply-all'

  • which account number is being used?

Modified by Toad-Hall

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Chosen Solution

I think this just uncovered a huge ball of wax type of issue. I have a feeling that this might have to do with the way I am transporting my "inboxes" from point to point.

The way it should be, account1, 12, and 13 are in their own inbox.

Account 4, 5, and 8 are grouped (4 is primary)

Account 10 and 11 are grouped (10 is primary)

In going through several message source codes (by the way I do not see a "other actions", I have to go view -> message source)

So if I look at the code for a message received into account 11, some of the code ties it to account11, and other messages are tied to account13

Similarly some messages to account10 have code that ties them to account10 and others to account12.

As I'm going through all my messages, I am now seeing the pattern.

When I am at home, and I receive an e-mail, the key ties it to the account number for which is it set up within that system. When I reply to this message from home, it works fine. When I transport that message to my work, then try to reply to that message, it sees the account key in the e-mail and uses that as the 'from', but this account key is linked to a different account.

I still haven't been able to figure out why there was a difference between the from address for a reply vs reply-to-all but now I can't recreate that either.

This may have to do with the fact that between when I first posed this question and now, I went on vacation and put all my e-mail onto a laptop which previously did not have TB on it, then transferred that back to my home computer when I returned, then back to work. So that my have reset the issue and caused the other ones that I am now seeing.

So now it's a big fat mess. I think the only way to fix this would be to go into the config editor of each computer and manually change the account ids so that they were synchronized on each machine, and then make sure that each machine had the exact same accounts set up. I have an additional 3 e-mail addresses on my home PC that I do not have on my work PC, and 2 of the work PC accounts I do not bring over to my home PC.

I don't see how this would easily get fixed unless I had all the settings on both PCs fully synchronized, instead of just synchronizing the mail folders. That seems to be causing the problem. On top of that, there is no way to fix the e-mails that I currently have, because the account keys are in the code. I would have to extract all the messages into individual .eml files using something like mbox to eml (which I have used before) and then manually editing the key in each message. Ugh.

What a mess!

Would using identities instead solve this? I don't think so...

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So I opened up the prefs.js file and figured out that this is the config file. I searched through it for "account11" "account 12" etc and it seems to me that what I "could" do is change all references to one particular account, on both machines, such that they matched. I might need to use a few go-betweens in order to rename the accounts, but the way the prefs.js file appears to be set up, changing the account# in all instances in which it occurs would appear to be one solution. But this would then disassociate all prior messages with the account they were originally sent to, resulting in the default account being used for whatever inbox that message is in. Which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

What do you think?

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For clarity, I would be chaging (in prefs.js) the preference mail.account.account##.identities and .server. So for instance I might change mail.account.account1.identities to account99.identities and account99.server, but I wouldn't change the value. There would also be a couple other instances where account1 would have to change to account99, for instance, in the references in the GetSelectedMail addon, the default account, and mail.accountmanager.accounts, you get the idea. I would do a "replace all", and of course I would do this to account11 12 and 13 before doing account1 so that I wouldn't end up with accounts like 991 992 and 993.

This is of course assuming that the account# string is not pulled out and incorporated into another external file used by TB, and that all references to the account# string are ONLY in prefs.js.

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You are correct, having two setups on different computers will cause the issue as the ids/account numbers etc are not the same. Changing all the account numbers etc to match both is time consuming.

One method you could consider: Create a new profile on home pc using Profile Manager. Do not add any mail accounts. access the Profile folder to see new profile name folders and files close thunderbird.

On work Pc copy all the contents IN the profile name folder and paste them into the new profile name folder on the home pc overwriting the default created folders. Make sure TB is closed. See image below .

Then on the home pc, open Thunderbird in the original Profile and delete all the accounts that you have in the new second profile. Leaving the 3 accounts that you do not have on the work pc.

Then access the new second profile on home pc. You should see an exact copy of what you have on the work pc and delete the 2 mail accounts that you do not have on home pc.

What will this achieve? Home pc has two profiles. old profile has 3 mail accounts that only show on home pc. new profile has all the accounts that you share between the two pc's.

Work pc has exactly the same as it currently has.

However, when you get mail into either the work pc or the home pc they will be using the same id/account numbers. Although all received mail todate will be 'out of synch', all future mail should be using the same numbers and should correct the issue.

Then when you copy the mail folders between the two pc's (using the second profile name on home pc) all the account numbers will be the same.

I created a shortcut icon on my desktop,so that I can easily access the Profile Manager. When you startup TB on the home pc, you can force Thunderbird to ask which profile to open by unchecking the checkbox 'don't ask at startup'. See info on Profile Manager:

See image which shows the files and folders you need to copy. All files and folders IN the Profile name.

Modified by Toad-Hall

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I don't want to have to open TB multiple times to check e-mail on different profiles though. I want it all under one.

I don't see how it would be difficult to match the account numbers. I searched the prefs file and there are maybe 6-10 references for each account, and just using find/replace and mapping everything out on a spreadsheet would take maybe an hour to get it straight.

Either way, one machine is going to have the numbers jumbled. If i jumble the numbers on both, then at least when I reply to an e-mail that is in one subfolder, if TB doesn't recognize the account key in the message being replied to, it will default to the main e-mail address designated for that deferred inbox. That's better than I have now.

So I would for instance use numbering schema such that no old numbers were used. account1 would become account20, 2 would become 25, etc.

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