Setting Your From: Header

This document contains the basic information on how to set the "From:" header in outgoing mail to be whatever you'd like it to be. For the sake of these examples we'll assume you are currently sending mail as "From: user@staffmail.ed.ac.uk", but you'd like it to be "From: user@inf.ed.ac.uk", obviously you'd fill in your DICE username. It only covers the 3 officially supported mail clients, but most have a similar feature.

www.staffmail.ed.ac.uk web interface
Thunderbird
pine/alpine

If you do alter your From: field, make sure you test it.

The www.staffmail.ed.ac.uk Web Interface

Login to www.staffmail.ed.ac.uk and click on the "Options" icon, and under the Options for Mail -> General Options click on the Personal Information link [ this link should work].
On this screen, if the Your default identity box says "Default Identity", then you should also select this in the Select the identity you want to change: box below.
Fill in Your Full Name and Your From: address as required, in this case "user@inf.ed.ac.uk" for the From: address.
Add "user@inf.ed.ac.uk" to the list of aliases in the Your aliases addresses box.
Scroll down the page and click the Save Options button.

That's it, now when you send mail via the www.staffmail.ed.ac.uk web interface it will stamp the From: header as being what you filled in above.

Thunderbird

With Thunderbird up and running:

Click on Edit -> Account Settings. [This may be under Tools/Options on Windows/Mac versions of Thunderbird].
On the left hand side of the Account Settings window locate the account you use to access staffmail.ed and click on it. The right hand side of the window should now show a "Default Identity" box, with Your Name, Email Address, etc fields.
Fill in the Your Name and Email Address boxes as appropriate. In this case "user@inf.ed.ac.uk" for the email address.
Click the OK button.

That's it, now when you send mail it will appear to be "From: user@inf.ed.ac.uk". You may want to note that newer versions of Thunderbird (eg 2.0 and above) have the option to create multiple identities per account, and you can choose to send mail as any of those identities when you compose your message.

pine and alpine

pine and alpine are the same, we'll use alpine in this example.

Start alpine and go to the MAIN MENU.
Goto SETUP (usually 's' on the keyboard)
and then CONFIG (usually 'c' on the keyboard)
First, you may want to enter "inf.ed.ac.uk" for the User Domain, though this isn't actually necessary.
Next look for the Customized Headers setting (you may want to use the (W) WhereIs command to search for it to save you looking). Change this value (usually 'c' on the keyboard) to:
```
  From: Firstname Lastname <user@inf.ed.ac.uk>
```
Where you set the Firstname, Lastname and email address appropriately.
Exit Setup (usually 'e' on the keyboard), and say "Yes" to the "Commit changes?" prompt.

That's it, now when you send messages it will set the From: field to be what you filled in the Customized Headers field.

Test it!

If you have tried changing your From: field, you should test it by sending your self a mail and making sure it looks OK. You should also reply to that message to make sure it does indeed make it back to you. For example, if you made a mistake when typing in your @inf address, you may find that the reply goes to some one else, or no where at all!