[SOLVED] Wrong from address

[triplemaya]

I am using thunderbird, and I use gmail for my outgoing server on all my email accounts, eg andrew@otherdomain.com. In the settings I have this as the reply-to-address for this account. And when I send myself a test email, and reply to it, this is correctly present in the To: box. But in the header of the message it states the message is from my gmail account. Can I change this or am I stuck with it if I am using the gmail server for outgoing mail?

[tanstaafl]

From http://kb.mozillazine.org/Multiple_iden ... il_account :

The Gmail SMTP server will ignore whatever From: address you supply unless you add it in the Gmail web page at Setting -> Accounts -> "Add another email address".

[triplemaya]

Thanks, but I am still in trouble with this. Having navigated to the interface to add another email address, it then wants my other smtp server and login details. But the whole point is I want to send using the gmail smtp server - as I understand it, thuderbird gets confused if you use more than one smtp server.

[tanstaafl]

"as I understand it, thuderbird gets confused if you use more than one smtp server."

Nope. In fact when you add a email account Thunderbird normally adds a new smtp server and defaults to using it. However, the interface I pointed you to was in gmail webmail (using a browser), NOT part of Thunderbird. In general you can use a Gmail smtp server with any (or all) account as long as you register that email address in the gmail webmail settings. Otherwise it ignores the From: email address and quietly replaces it with the email address associated with that gmail account.

[triplemaya]

Thanks. Looks like the simplest may well be to use the other smtp servers for my other accounts. The difficulties might be from many years ago. I'm pretty sure it was an issue at some time.
I'm still not understanding why gmail wants my login details for the other email account. All I want gmail to do is NOT insert my gmail address as the address from which the mail originates. Because it wants the login details I am thinking it must want to take the email it is handling for me and pass it over to the other server. Which seems cumbersome.

[triplemaya]

I have now been told that server the message is sent through defines the From address even if the e-mail client one is using is overriding the Reply-To address with something one wants.

[tanstaafl]

Normally, the smtp server doesn't care what the from: address is (and leaves it alone) as long as you're authenticated. However, Gmail does. They have a non-standard implementation of all of their mail servers.