mail.appsoftware-recommendation
I happily use mail with several accounts. When I send a new email I often forget to choose the correct 'From' account. Is there a mail plugin that allows to set the default 'From' account using some rules.
One example could be: if the recipient ends in '@example.com' use the work account.
Or as an alternative is there a way to change the 'From' dropdown menu using a key combination? (this would not solve the case when I forget to set it but would at least speed up the process)
Adding a Bcc ("Blind carbon copy") header to your outgoing mail causes your mail server to deliver the mail to the Bcc address, as well as the To and Cc (etc) as normal.
Mail.app can be made to add this header in a few different ways. (The question mentions Rules, but I believe those only act on incoming mail.)
If necessary, use the context menu (shown below) to make the Bcc text box visible, and type an address into it.
Disadvantage here: the text box is empty every time you start a new message.
This setting is at Mail > Preferences > Composing > "Automatically Bcc myself".
Disadvantage here: you can only Bcc your own address this way.
There is a workaround to this, though. Turn on "Automatically Bcc myself", and set up a Rule (in Mail > Preferences > Rules) to forward all incoming messages from yourself (here, mark@example.com) to the other person (sam@example.com). This will clog up your inbox with these copies of your sent mail, but you could also set the rule to delete them after performing the forwarding.
However! This workaround seems a little flakey to me: eg, if I understand correctly, if you happen to email yourself (say, send yourself a reminder from your iPhone), then that message will be sent to the other person and then deleted. So I wouldn't recommend it.
There is a hidden preference setting which causes Mail.app to automatically add a Bcc address to all outgoing mail. This can be any address, not just your own. But! This setting can be quite confusing, for two reasons (at least: there may also be other subtleties here that I'm not aware of):
The automatically added address isn't visible in the Bcc text box.
The automatically added address overwrites anything you put into the Bcc text box (apparently: I haven't tested this detail).
If you want to try this, follow these instructions:
Quit Mail.app
Open Terminal.app (this is in /Applications/Utilities)
Type the following. This creates a backup copy of Mail's preferences file (before we start meddling with it) on your Desktop.
cp ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist ~/Desktop/
The location of this file changed in 10.7, I think - if you are using an older OS, you'll need to use ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist (I believe) instead.
Now add the preference setting by typing the following. Substitute the address you actually want to use, but be sure to type the rest exactly as shown.
defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Bcc" = "sam@example.com";}'
(Note: I found this defaults setting in a hint here).
Start Mail.app and test.
Here are some other commands that might be useful:
View the current setting:
defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders
Remove the setting (be very careful to type this one exactly as shown):
defaults delete com.apple.mail UserHeaders
Put the backup file you created earlier back into place, undoing any changes:
cp ~/Desktop/com.apple.mail.plist ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/
Make sure you've switched off the new 'Automatically Maintain' settings that appeared with Yosemite.
Two places, outgoing & incoming...
for each account
and for each Outgoing Server
Best Answer
If you use the unified inbox then this can be a problem. If you expand the mailboxes and read them from those, then you can set-up Mail to send using the account for that mailbox.
I suppose this may require remembering to select the correct mailbox in a similar way to remembering to select the from account though.