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Strange email behaviour from one contact...
#41302 07/31/16 04:20 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
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Hi

This is really trivial, I already know that, but it's beginning to irritate me: I'm beyond "puzzled", now.

One email contact, with whom I have fairly frequent contact, his/her incoming emails change frequently in both the From and To fields, viz:

Sometimes the From field shows his/her names, both of them on the shared account........sometimes the From field only shows her name.

Sometimes the From field shows her name twice, instead of his/her names.

Sometimes the To field shows my name full out, sometimes the To field shows my name messed up (reversed).

My own emails, both on Mac Mail and gmail, show my name correctly, the way I set it up. I've never changed that.

I can only surmise that either:

She/he keeps messing with the settings on their shared account which makes me think Why?, or, something is badly wrong with their Mac. (I know it's a Mac, either device from which they may send me emails.)

Any ideas? Many thanks as ever.

Re: Strange email behaviour from one contact...
Bensheim #41304 07/31/16 05:23 PM
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Whenever this has occurred in my experience, the "other end" has used ...
• another email account with a different entry for my email address
• has numerous entries for my email address and selects one at random
• simply selected something like "Reply All" from someone else's email (address book)

Best bet — if this is truly annoying to you — is to let your e-correspondent know about same and have them fix their address book accordingly.

When I examine my various email accounts' address books (which collect sent and received email addresses of e-correspondents, I often find numerous entries for the same individuals; it's the fault of the email client you're using.

So, thanks. You've given me impetus to go through my various (collected) email addresses and delete the extraneous ones — which I'm going to do as soon as I post this.

Re: Strange email behaviour from one contact...
grelber #41305 07/31/16 06:04 PM
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When checking for those emails don't forget the Previous Recipients list in Mail itself.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Strange email behaviour from one contact...
grelber #41308 07/31/16 08:36 PM
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This is interesting. sort of.

They only send to me from gmail. Not from a macmail or their own domain. I have a gmail account too. To access it from anywhere on any computer, I have to be on the internet first.......and the From and To fields never change.

Therefore - help me if I'm wrong about this - the only way to change a gmail account's To and From fields, one would have to go into that gmail account and twiddle about (which is a lot of twiddling about) to change anything like that.

Therefore, it doesn't matter whether they're on their iPad or iMac, they're still going onto the internet and accessing their gmail account in order to send me something, right?

Or, could they somehow be using the iPad and iMac to use their macmail to thence access gmail? If yes, how WEIRD is that? How extra-complicated is that? Why do that, that way?

If I'm right, tbh I'm not surprised. One of these correspondents has an intellect rivalled only by garden tools.

Re: Strange email behaviour from one contact...
Bensheim #41309 07/31/16 09:14 PM
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Originally Posted By: Bensheim

They only send to me from gmail. Not from a macmail or their own domain. I have a gmail account too. To access it from anywhere on any computer, I have to be on the internet first.......and the From and To fields never change.

If you are using Gmail through your internet browser (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc) you do have to be on the internet to use Gmail. I don't want to overcomplicate this, but it is also possible to use Gmail through Apple's Mail App on the Mac, an iPad, or an iPhone. It is really easy to set that up.
Originally Posted By: Bensheim
Therefore - help me if I'm wrong about this - the only way to change a gmail account's To and From fields, one would have to go into that gmail account and twiddle about (which is a lot of twiddling about) to change anything like that.

If you are using the Gmail web interface through your browser it is quit difficult to change the From field If you are using an email client such as Mail on your Mac you can change the From field to be the address of any email account you have set up in Mail. In either case all it takes the change the To field is to type in the email address of the person you are sending the email to.
Originally Posted By: Bensheim
Therefore, it doesn't matter whether they're on their iPad or iMac, they're still going onto the internet and accessing their gmail account in order to send me something, right?

Not necessarily, as I said it is easy to configure Mail on any OS X or iOS device to use a Gmail account, so they could be using either Mail or the Gmail web interface or Mail
Originally Posted By: Bensheim
Or, could they somehow be using the iPad and iMac to use their macmail to thence access gmail? If yes, how WEIRD is that? How extra-complicated is that? Why do that, that way?

It really isn't extra complicated, I have four email accounts from four different services and I access all of them through Mail so I only have to be familiar with one mail interface.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Strange email behaviour from one contact...
joemikeb #41313 08/01/16 06:30 PM
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This is all most helpful, thank you.

I have summarised what I perceive as the problem to the person in question, and await some response. That could be nil, since it's not their "problem". I realise that this is a trivial matter, but there comes a point (after years) when irritation becomes (how can I put it?) grating.

If that goes well, all I have to do next, is persuade her/him to change their Skype handle to Her AND Him!

Re: Strange email behaviour from one contact...
Bensheim #41336 08/02/16 07:17 PM
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A fair chunk of that comes from how it's identifying the sender. If you mouse over the From entry and click on the down triangle, you should get some options.

Try showing the contact, and then click Show in Addressbook (two steps!) and see what's in the system for that account.

If you're getting different results, check again. They may be sending to you from two different accounts. Make sure both accounts are in the same addressbook card. If not, merge or enter. That will at least make things more consistent.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department

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