How To Set Your Email "From" Address

Introduction

When you send an email message to someone, your email client (Eudora, Outlook, etc) fills in various email header fields in the outbound message, such as the date of the message. One of these fields is the From field. This field tells the recipient who the message is from, and provides an email address to which the recipient can send a reply. Here is an example of some email headers, including a From field.

   Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 07:39:16 +1030
   To: Ross Williams <ross@ross.net>
   From: Joe Bloggs <joe.bloggs@domain.com>
   Subject: New version released.

Typically, when you obtain an internet dialup account with an email address, your email address looks something like this:

   ross33747@mail.some-random-isp.com

While such an address may be a convenient "end point" email address, it is not a suitable official email address. Once you obtain your own domain name, or once you are allocated an email address by your company, there is a need to promote your official email address rather than the end-point email address.

The actual routing of email from your official email address to your end-point email address is set up by your systems administrator. For example: if my official email address is ross@ross.net, the administrator would set up the following mapping.

   ross@ross.net ---> ross33747@some-random-isp.com

Once this is done, you can publicise your new official email address, and any email sent to that address will arrive at your end-point email address. The only thing left to do is to configure your email client so that it sets your official email address as your From address in outbound email. Explaining how to do that is the purpose of this web page.

Your From Address Does Not Restrict Inbound Email

An important point is that setting your From address in your email client has no affect whatsoever on the set of email addresses through which you receive email. Setting your From address merely sets the From field in your outbound email.

The From address is just like the return address you write on an envelope when you send some paper mail to someone.

Setting The From Address In Eudora

Here's how to set your From Address in Eudora. These instructions are for the Macintosh version of Eudora, but the Windows Eudora procedure is likely to be very similar.

1. In the Special menu, select Settings...

2. Select the Getting Started settings.

3. Enter your official email address in the Return Address field.

4. Enter your name in the Real Name field.

If you have set up a number of different accounts/personalities (and you will know if you have done this), you may need to set your official address in more than one personality. To do this, select the Personalities settings and enter the information as above.

To test your new From address, email yourself a message and examine the headers of the message when it arrives.

Setting The From Address In Outlook Express

1. In the Tools menu, select Accounts.

2. Select the account whose From address you wish to set and click on the Properties button.

3. In the User Information Email Address box, enter the From address you want to use.

To test your new From address, email yourself a message and examine the headers of the message when it arrives.

Setting The From Address In Microsoft Outlook

1. In the Tools menu, select Services.

2. Click on Internet Mail.

2. Click on Properties.

3. In the Email Address box, enter the From address you want to use.

To test your new From address, email yourself a message and examine the headers of the message when it arrives.

Ross Williams (ross@ross.net)
28 January 2002

Revised 31 January 2002.