Mail vs Internet Accounts... Again?!

[Xairbusdriver]

Was about to send a question to a dev I've never talked with before. Decided I should probably use the same 'donotspam addy I did when I downloaded his app and that he used to send me a message.

Alas, when I attempted to select that addy as my From list, it was not available. It's actually just an additional (alias) addy in my comcast account, but I thought I could 'fake' Mail into accepting a 'new' account with the info I had available...

First off, I noticed Mail decided to change my comcast email address, in the already in-use account to the 'donotspam' addy. OK, Mail wants the two addy's to be the same... but the main comcast addy is what should stay in the main account, I think. And I managed to get that changed back. I also changed the account name to help convince Mail to save my entries...

Next, I see that the 'new' account has now changed the info there to attempt to match the main comcast account...

OK, let's just back up a bit. In fact, let's just delete this new 'donotspam' account in Mail and forget this whole scheme. Clicking the "-" (Delete/Remove/Kill/Ignore) mini-button does nothing helpful! Instead, it brings up a dialog reminding me that Mail and Internet Accounts System Prefs are now joined at the hip!

About this time I get the "What is the password for that new email account?" dialog! Remember the endless-loop that thing has done?! I gave it a password and it went away, at least long enough to get to the System Prefs.

Now I see that the Prefs window has the two comcast accounts, but when I hit the delete button with what claims to be the 'donotspam' addy, I get a warning asking if I really want to delete the main comcast account addy! "Uh... not really, why not delete the one that you have labeled, instead?" Unfortunately, I got no answer. I guess Siri is not running on my iMac...

Long story short, I now have Mail running, with the correct info for the my four accounts/domains. OTOH, "Internet Accounts" still shows the main comcast account with an addy of 'donotspam'. Who knows how long before I have to disable/delete/remove/erase/block-out/etc. the whole comcast set up and start over?

[Paddy]

That's all very strange, Jim. I've got several Rogers accounts and even more Gmail accounts in Mail and it's never tried to turn one into the other or otherwise get them mixed up.

I'm not sure what you mean by "alias" account - most ISPs, including Comcast, allow users a number of email addresses. They're not aliases - they're real email addresses, each with their own PW etc. There will usually be a "primary" email account that can't be deleted, but the creation of the other ones, and their deletion is up to you. My entire family have Rogers accounts of their own - mine is the primary account. I've created several others over the years - some of which I've now deleted. I can have up to 9 active at any one time, if I recall correctly.

Deleting an email account in Mail requires that you go into Internet Accounts in System Preferences, either via System Prefs or via Mail->Accounts; you cannot delete an account from Mail ->Prefs->Accounts (though you can ADD one here - go figure...). I'm not sure which OS changed that - it was a while ago.

[Xairbusdriver]

Things are still working, despite the name changing. At least on the Mail side of things.

I think the Internet Accounts Pref requirement came in with Mavericks. I'm sure it was before Yosemite, anyway.

Although unrelated, I may need to replace my Comcast Cable router. Had to reset it yesterday and then again, today. For just a bit of encouragement, I'd simply buy one. Of course, Comcast would then probably raise my rate enough to cover their loss of rent charges (which are just cobbled into the monthly amount, anyway). I hope we see some local competition before I leave this earth, but I'm not hopeful.

[gunug]

QUOTE

I'm not sure what you mean by "alias" account - most ISPs, including Comcast, allow users a number of email addresses. They're not aliases - they're real email addresses, each with their own PW etc.

The way it's handled with my old pre-AT&T accounts is I have one that terminates in "yahoo.com" and one that terminates in "sbcglobal.net" and they're identical in where email goes.  I can send myself and others an email from the account and use the other termination as an address and get a copy back; not sure why I do this! I'm assuming that the one in this case is an alias of the other.

[Xairbusdriver]

Mail (or maybe me ) kept having trouble associating he password and the email address/account. It would restore this comcast account to "online" but only after I used the menu item. I copied down all the info I could find, including the two different passwords (plus another that was changed this year but that I have no idea what it's for ) and saved the file. Then I deleted the account, in Internet Accounts, of course, despite there being a "+" and "-" button in Mail.  Set up a new account, with the saved info and the main password. So far (a few hours) and Mail opens up fine with all mail accounts 'online'.

The problem, it seems to me, is that these two different apps/functions share certain info but also have fields filled in that are obviously wrong, but that are not editable. There's probably a way to edit a Pref or issue a command in Terminal, but that is anything but user-friendly.