This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

incorrect identity

  • 5 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by nonpsvdl

more options

My husband and I share an email account with both of our names as our default identity. I created two additional identities, each with just one of our names (so if, for instance, I want to send him a link to an interesting article, I'll put myname.sonic/net in the "From" field and hisname.sonic.net in the "To" field). This has worked fine in the past. Recently, we bought a new computer and at first I didn't create multiple identities, but just customized the default as needed. Eventually, though, I created the new identities and I also added all three identities to our address book. This is what happens: 1) If I fill in From myname and To hisname, the email in our inbox has myname for both From and Recipient (and vice versa) 2) Worse, if I fill in both From and To with "Hisname and Myname" (the default identity), the email in our inbox has Hisname as both the From and Recipient 3) Worst of all, whoever is the latest From , becomes the Recipient of all the emails in our inbox that have been received since adding the identities.

Note: I just 1) deleted the address book listings and all the identities except for the default "Hisname and Myname" --> ""Hisname and Myname" as From and Recipient of ALL emails, not just the more recent one 2) then I tried adding Myname back to the address book and wrote an email with customized Hisname in the To field and Myname in the To field --> all emails now show Myname as both the From and Recipient. So, it appears that the name is being drawn from the address book rather than using the default identity.

My husband and I share an email account with both of our names as our default identity. I created two additional identities, each with just one of our names (so if, for instance, I want to send him a link to an interesting article, I'll put myname.sonic/net in the "From" field and hisname.sonic.net in the "To" field). This has worked fine in the past. Recently, we bought a new computer and at first I didn't create multiple identities, but just customized the default as needed. Eventually, though, I created the new identities and I also added all three identities to our address book. This is what happens: 1) If I fill in From myname and To hisname, the email in our inbox has myname for both From and Recipient (and vice versa) 2) Worse, if I fill in both From and To with "Hisname and Myname" (the default identity), the email in our inbox has Hisname as both the From and Recipient 3) Worst of all, whoever is the latest From , becomes the Recipient of all the emails in our inbox that have been received since adding the identities. Note: I just 1) deleted the address book listings and all the identities except for the default "Hisname and Myname" --> ""Hisname and Myname" as From and Recipient of ALL emails, not just the more recent one 2) then I tried adding Myname back to the address book and wrote an email with customized Hisname in the To field and Myname in the To field --> all emails now show Myname as both the From and Recipient. So, it appears that the name is being drawn from the address book rather than using the default identity.

All Replies (5)

more options

Another note: I just deleted Myname from the address book and all Froms and Recipients reverted to the correct names as I originally entered them when writing the emails (versus the default Hisname and Myname). I guess they'll stay like that until I rite another email.

more options

Just a suggestion: You might check with sonic to see if aliases are part of the account features. If so, you could use the identities feature of Thunderbird for the equivalent of having separate email accounts.

more options

david said

Just a suggestion: You might check with sonic to see if aliases are part of the account features. If so, you could use the identities feature of Thunderbird for the equivalent of having separate email accounts.

Thanks for replying David, but I've been using multiple aliases and identities with Thunderbird and Sonic for 2-3 years without any problem.

This is a new computer and my first iMac (Ventura 13.2.1). Thunderbird is version 102.8.0.

more options

Then, I don't understand the problem, as identities have nothing to do with addressbook. Puzzling.

more options

I agree, David!