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Customise From Address not being applied to sent message with Gmail +aliases.

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  • Last reply by david

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Despite the popup's instructions, customising my 'from' address with a Gmail alias doesn't apply when the e-mail is sent.

Steps:

  1. Given account 'john.examplename@gmail.com' successfully connected to Thunderbird.
  2. Write a message in Thunderbird, using 'customise from address' drop-down to change sender to 'john.examplename+alias@gmail.com' and Bcc message to 'john.examplename+alias@gmail.com'
  3. Failure: Inbox receives message from 'john.examplename@gmail.com' (+alias omitted) to 'john.examplename+alias@gmail.com' despite the above steps.
  4. This can also be observed when browsing the 'sent' folder.

Repeating these steps in Gmail's web client sends the message correctly, but defeats the point of using Thunderbird to mange email!

Is this a bug or have I mis-configured things somewhere?

Despite the popup's instructions, customising my 'from' address with a Gmail alias doesn't apply when the e-mail is sent. Steps: # Given account 'john.examplename@gmail.com' successfully connected to Thunderbird. # Write a message in Thunderbird, using 'customise from address' drop-down to change sender to 'john.examplename'''+alias'''@gmail.com' and Bcc message to 'john.examplename+alias@gmail.com' # Failure: Inbox receives message from 'john.examplename@gmail.com' (+alias omitted) to 'john.examplename+alias@gmail.com' despite the above steps. # This can also be observed when browsing the 'sent' folder. Repeating these steps in Gmail's web client sends the message correctly, but defeats the point of using Thunderbird to mange email! Is this a bug or have I mis-configured things somewhere?
Attached screenshots

All Replies (7)

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Is the alias defined under 'manage identities'?

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david said

Is the alias defined under 'manage identities'?

My understanding of the instructions given (refer the attachment in OP) is that I shouldn't have to do this, especially if one is using an alias ad-hoc.

Nonetheless, I've created a few test identities, one with email set to +test, another with both e-mail and reply-to set to +test, all test messages were received from the base email address, ignoring the +alias.

If 'Manage Identities' is a workaround, is there a field I'm missing?

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'Manage identities' is not a workaround, but a feature for aliases. I cannot advise of possible missing fields without seeing a screenshot of what you have in the Identities setup. Thanks.

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david said

'Manage identities' is not a workaround, but a feature for aliases. I cannot advise of possible missing fields without seeing a screenshot of what you have in the Identities setup. Thanks.

At risk of going off topic, here's what I had under manage identities. All other values are defaults.

My central issue is that I'd like to figure out why Thunderbird doesn't use the alias I tell it to when sending e-mail through Gmail. Anything else I can try to figure out what's up? Is there a setting I need to enable in a google account to do this??

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What seems key here is whether those are aliases. An alias is a legitimate email identifier, tied to a real email address. Just adding "+test" to an email address doesn't make it an alias. What Gmail is doing is salvaging the message by removing the +test from the message. This has nothing to do with Thunderbird. If you had a real alias, or a legitimate email address that had been set to forward to your gmail account, then that would work seamlessly. Notice the attachment in your first post; it stated 'if your provider supports it..' - and Gmail does not (and that is true for many/most email providers.)

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Well that's quite interesting, thank you for the explanation! My understanding had been that aliases one sets up within Outlook were functionally identical to the salvaging that Gmail does with the +extensions, as I knew both features as "aliases".

Is there presently a way then for Thunderbird to send a message from a (Gmail) address with a +extension?

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Not to my knowledge. Sorry.