Multiple identities per e-mail account

You can tell Thunderbird to use more than one identity per mail account. This would be the case where you have a catch-all account for a domain or forward messages from another e-mail address. The instructions below assume that you have Thunderbird 0.7 or higher.

1. Go to "Tools -> Account Settings".
2. Choose the account to which you wish to add additional identities.
3. Click the "Manage Identities" button (on the lower right).
4. Click the "Add" button and then add the necessary information for the additional identity for the account.
5. Repeat as necessary for additional identities.

Now, you can select any of the identities when replying, forwarding or composing a new message by selecting it in the From drop down list box. If desired, you can also create a unique signature , specify the draft folder, what folder your copy of the sent message should be stored in, and what reply-to address should be used for each identity. If you configure each identity in all of the accounts then you can ignore what account you're in when sending as long as each account is configured to use a SMTP server that uses SMTP authentication (to eliminate any external dependencies).

Thunderbird will list every known identity in the From drop down list even if you're not configured to use them for that account. This can result in Thunderbird using the accounts default preferences instead. You can avoid this potential problem by configuring every identity in each account.

Exceptions

The Gmail SMTP server will ignore whatever From: address you supply unless you add it in the Gmail web page at Setting -> Accounts -> "Add another email address".

See Also

Multiple SMTP servers (Thunderbird)

External links

• The old way to add multiple identities by editing prefs.js
• Identity Reminder extension This extension might be usefull if you're worried that you will accidentally reply using the wrong email address.
• Freeform From and FCC on Compose extension. This extension lets you type in anything you want for the email address. The tradeoff is you'll have to type it again next time, its not persisted like the multiple identities support does. Note that the author usually doesn't update their web site to mention the latest version number.
• Virtual identity extensionAnother extension to modify your From address on the fly while composing a message.