Thursday, June 20, 2013
Thunderbird - sending only first name as email id?
I was mortified to see that an email I had sent to a discussion group came seemed to have come from "John" - just my first name (that is how the copy sent to me appeared in my Thunderbird inbox), and no sign of my surname. What an idiot I must have been appearing to everyone I was emailing - assuming that I was so important to them that "John" was sufficient identification.
Why was this happening? How long had I been making an idiot of myself?
It turns out that I wasn't. My Account Settings in Thunderbird were unchanged, and the email was indeed going out with my full name.
But when the copy came in, Thunderbird was looking up my own email address in my Address Book, finding an entry which was marked simply "John" and using that ID in the "From" column. There is a setting "Always prefer display name over message header" which you can disable.
Why was this happening? How long had I been making an idiot of myself?
It turns out that I wasn't. My Account Settings in Thunderbird were unchanged, and the email was indeed going out with my full name.
But when the copy came in, Thunderbird was looking up my own email address in my Address Book, finding an entry which was marked simply "John" and using that ID in the "From" column. There is a setting "Always prefer display name over message header" which you can disable.
