Email aliases

[Caasi-dev]

Problem

Since new Mail app uses now new online accounts settings, there is no other way to manage email accounts. Previously when email was added, one could go to account settings and add email aliases.

Proposal

Expand online accounts to enable that feature or restore previous settings to include alias settings

[cassidyjames]

This would be great as I know we use aliases for the elementary email accounts and I use it for my personal Fastmail account as well.

[wout]

@caasi-dev If you install Evolution, you can create aliases in there and they'll show up in Mail as well. I know it's a workaround, but if it's a pressing issue, that's a temporary solution.

[nevillepark]

@caasi-dev If you install Evolution, you can create aliases in there and they'll show up in Mail as well. I know it's a workaround, but if it's a pressing issue, that's a temporary solution.

I had successfully been doing this, but in the latest version of Mail, it doesn't seem to be working; there are no other email address options when composing a message. Has that feature been removed?

[marbetschar]

It has not been removed on purpose, but maybe its a side effect of this fix: https://github.com/elementary/mail/pull/769

~~EDIT: Nevermind, seems not to merged yet. I'm on mobile atm and my mind tricked me into wrong assumptions :)~~

EDIT 2: This is the PR I originally meant: https://github.com/elementary/mail/pull/756

[Soljanka]

Is there any other workaround to use Mail 6.4 with email aliases?

[wout]

Are there plans to re-implement email aliases? For me personally, it's one of the few missing features that are holding me back from using Mail as my default email client.

I love the work done so far. It's so much better already!

[leolost2605]

@wout first of all thanks for your positive feedback, glad you like the updates to mail! :)

If you install Evolution, you can create aliases in there and they'll show up in Mail as well. I know it's a workaround, but if it's a pressing issue, that's a temporary solution.

This workaround should still work although I think only if you install evolution using sudo apt install evolution and not via flatpak/appcenter.

I'd be happy to implement alias configuration but I'm not 100% sure where:

1. The Online Account settings might be a good place as there is also the normal address configured and you probably don't want to change an alias later on
2. The mail app on the other hand would be good because then you have the configuration you might want to be doing later in one place (like with the signatures). Also given the uncertainty of a future flatpak portal, using the online accounts for configuring might only duplicate work we will have to do later.

Any preferences here? :) Also maybe @danirabbit has some suggestions?

[wout]

This workaround should still work although I think only if you install evolution using sudo apt install evolution and not via flatpak/appcenter.

Ah, that was the issue. I installed it via Flathub. Thanks!

Any preferences here? :)

I think the best place would be in the app itself, similar to Signatures. Personally, I don't like it when I have to switch to a completely different context to change preferences. I get that it's useful in relation to setting up accounts, but email aliases are something else. Anyway, that's my opinion. :)

[wout]

There's one thing I'd like to add here. If someone sends an email to one of the aliases, and you reply to it, the reply should have the correct alias selected in the From field. Currently, that's not the case. Another thing would be setting a preferred sender address.

Let me know if I need to open a separate issue for it.

[leolost2605]

There's one thing I'd like to add here. If someone sends an email to one of the aliases, and you reply to it, the reply should have the correct alias selected in the From field. Currently, that's not the case.

#956 should fix this

[wout]

That's great! Thanks!