How to Change the Sent From Email Address on a Mac

May 2, 2017 - 9 Comments

Change the Sent From email  address on Mac

Mac uses with multiple email addresses and email accounts configured in the Mail app will likely find themselves wanting to change the email address that a particular email is sent from. This is different from changing the default email account on a Mac, as this approach allows the Sent From address to be changed anytime on a per-email basis without setting the default email to something else.


You will need to be using the Mail app in Mac OS and have at least two email accounts setup to be used in the app. You can add a new email account to the Mac Mail app at any time from a service like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, or make a new iCloud email address easily.

Changing the Sent From Email Address on a Per Email Basis in Mac Mail

This will change the Sent From address for the currently composed email only, it does not change the default email on the Mac.

  1. Open the Mail app for Mac if you have not done so already and compose a new email
  2. Hover the mouse over the name next to the “From:” section and click on the pull down menu
  3. Change the Sent From email address per email on Mac Mail app

  4. Choose the email address you want to send this specific email from
  5. Change the Sent From email address per email on Mac

  6. Confirm the email address is what you want to send the email from and send your message as usual

Note if you do not see the “From:” dropdown menu option it is likely because you do not have more than one email address setup in the default Mail app and perhaps instead have one setup in another third party email client, in which case you’d want to add an additional email address to the Mail app to gain access to this feature..

This change is only for that specific email composition, that means the change to the Sent From address will not carry forward to another new email. If you do want to change every email address to default to something else, then you’d want to set the default email account in Mail for Mac to something else as described here.

This ability is pretty similar to how changing the Sent From address on iOS Mail works too, it’s a little hidden at first glance but it’s super easy to use once you know it’s there.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

9 Comments

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  1. Jeremy says:

    I own several domain names, but they don’t have their own mail servers. Emails are redirected to my mac.com address. How do I change the From field to reflect my domain name instead of the physical mail server?

  2. Martin Winlow says:

    I’ve added (yet another – I have about 6 now) account to my Mac Mail and the email address for this only appears in the From: dropdown if I am replying to an email sent to this new account.

    How can I make the new account email address appear in *all* my outgoing emails, newly composed or in reply to ones sent to any of my accounts?

    • Martin Winlow says:

      OK – Answering my own question… a restart fixed this issue (‘turn it off and back on again”).

  3. Matt Tolle says:

    I’ve had this setup for years now and it’s worked great. The latest OS update seems to have added some functionality that breaks things. If/when the connection to my work exchange server goes down OSX mail.app now automatically tries to send from the next email address. In my case that’s my personal account. This is VERY annoying. Is there a way to force the mail.app to stop doing this? The outgoing mail servers are set automatically so I can’t use the “force use of outgoing mail server” for exchange. I’ve googled around but found nothing that helps.

  4. DCJ001 says:

    Additional email addresses are added at: Mail app Preferences, Accounts.

  5. Dick K says:

    I added another email address to my Contacts card but it does not show up in the popup selector to pick a From: address. I wonder what I did wrong

  6. no way says:

    Seriously, imo if you cannot figure this out after adding a second email address to your account, you have much bigger issues.

  7. DCJ001 says:

    And, if you would like to set your default “Send new messages from” email address, go to Mail Preferences, Composing, and select the default email address from the pull-down list that is next to “Send new messages from.”

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