Mail keeps forgetting my default settings

[Pine Man]

Mac OS Sonoma running on a Silicon M1 iMac.

I use Apple Mail set up with two email accounts, iCloud and Google. Every so often, when I want to compose mail, I only get the options of using Google or Hide My Mail. NOT my iCloud address, which I want as default.

In Settings/Accounts/Accounts Information both accounts are set up correctly and Enabled.


In Settings/Composing/Send new messages from: I have tried leaving it as ‘Automatically select best account’ or ‘my iCloud email address’. On the occasions that I then compose mail and get the Google account instead of iCloud I check that setting to find that my iCloud email address is missing. If I remove Google from Mail I get no options in ‘Send new messages from:’ other than ‘Automatically select best account’.

Basically Apple Mail seems to be forgetting my iCloud email address which I want as the default.

 

[Rikbuccaneer]

Same thing is happening to me. Makes business day difficult having to re enter email in accounts several times a day.

 

[southerndoc]

I wonder if this is a bug with 14.4.1. It only started happening to me recently. I only have iCloud, but it will select hide my email, generate a hidden email alias, and then give me an error message when I try to send (asking which server I want to use).

Restarting Mail, rebooting, etc. didn't fix it. So far it seems fixed. I signed out of iCloud, rebooted, then signed back in. Praying it's fixed it.

 

[Ready-for-Apple]

Thanks for sharing this! Thought this is an issue with OCLP on my patched MacBook Pro.

 

[Pine Man]

In desperation I went to Finder and the Library, and Hidden Library, folders and deleted every folder which included the word Mail.

This forced Mail to reset itself. I then added the iCloud email account and made sure it was properly set up before adding the gmail account.

It has been working ok now for about 36 hours🤞🤞

 

[Pine Man]

It has been working ok now for about 36 hours

...........and now it has stopped- completely forgetting my iCloud email address

 

[Ready-for-Apple]

I'm beginning to think that something has gone wrong in the latest macOS update - on Apple's part

I'm not 100% sure whether the issue has existed since macOS 14.4 or 14.4.1. But I think that the issue has only existed since 14.4.1.

 

[Pine Man]

I think that the issue has only existed since 14.4.1.

Well I'm going to use an alternative to Mail until 14.4.2 - hopefully!

 

[kagharaht]

Mine just keeps unexpectedly quitting on me. Have you tried this to see if it fixes yours? I've just done this yesterday and keeping my fingers crossed that it fixes it.

Mail just crashed

Clear out your Mail preferences and set it back up. Remove all of your mail accounts Download AppCleaner (It's free: https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/) Open System Preferences In the search bar type "Full Disk Access" Click on the result under "Privacy & Security" Click the + button in the...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Buadhai]

I posted elsewhere about the problems my wife and I are having with Mac Mail:

iCloud Mail Irritations

It got no replies, but the missing iCloud addresses in the From line of an email message is one of the irritations I mentioned.

There are several others.

 

[gilby101]

I use Apple Mail set up with two email accounts, iCloud and Google. Every so often, when I want to compose mail, I only get the options of using Google or Hide My Mail. NOT my iCloud address, which I want as default.

You should be getting the option for all your email addresses. And for iCloud, all your addresses that belong to the mailbox - e.g. xxx@me.com as well as xxx@icloud.com.

If you seeing Hide My Mail and not your iCloud addresses, this relates to the hide my email functionality of Apple Mail which uses a hidden address when sending mail. Try disabling 'hide my email' and see if that fixes it so that you always see the iCloud addresses.

In Settings/Composing/Send new messages from: I have tried leaving it as ‘Automatically select best account’ or ‘my iCloud email address’.

Mine is set as ‘Automatically select best account’ . When composing, the default send address is the address in the most recently viewed message. So If I have been viewing message to my gmail account, the next new message will be marked as from the gmail account. And so on.

In other words the 'best account' is the account associated with the most recently viewed message. This has been consistent for many years - up to and including macOS 14.4.1.

If I change the preference to always use a particular email, that is what it does.

Again this issue may relate to 'hide my email'. Turning that off should fix it.

 

[Pine Man]

Turning that off should fix it.

If only I could! There is no facility.

 

[gilby101]

If only I could! There is no facility.

Hm - yes. Sorry, I was missing that. It is an always available option when one has an iCloud email address. And so doesn't explain your issue.

 

[Pine Man]

And so doesn't explain your issue.

Basically it remembers my gmail address but keeps forgetting the iCloud address whatever I do in settings. My iPhone and Intel iMac both work perfectly so it is clearly a Sonoma Mail issue on my Silicon iMac.

I am hopeful that the next Sonoma update will fix it but I'm not holding my breath!

At the moment I'm using Spark, which is very, very good and works perfectly. Their support is superb, responding to a couple emails about setup issues I had within an hour or so during their working day (in Ukraine). I might even stick with it!!

 

[gilby101]

Sonoma Mail issue on my Silicon iMac.

I don't think this is a general problem. My M3 MBP works as expected as well as my Intel iMac. The usual suggestion would be to completely remove iCloud from your Mac and reconnect. But, I have no confidence that that would solve the issue for you - and it would be a pain to do and risk messing up something else!

 

[Ready-for-Apple]

My iPhone and Intel iMac both work perfectly so it is clearly a Sonoma Mail issue on my Silicon iMac.

It is unfortunately not only silicone Mac Related. I have it on my MacBook Pro 2014 (macOS 14.4.1+ OCLP) and on my MacBook Air M1.

At the moment I'm using Spark, which is very, very good and works perfectly

Spark used to be really good.
Since about a year, however, I've been sending emails that look perfectly formatted in Spark but arrive at the recipient in different formats (different sizes and fonts)❗️🫣

That's why I've gone back to Apple Mail, although I miss one feature of Spark very much and therefore continue to use it parallel just for reading emails:
Summarizing emails into "messages" and "newsletters" divided from real personal emails.

I also find it very annoying that all the premium features in the Mac desktop version - which I don't use/pay for - are permanently displayed and therefore take up unnecessary space and are irritating. Unfortunately, I have not found a way to hide these.

 

[Pine Man]

I am hopeful that the next Sonoma update will fix it but I'm not holding my breath!

No, no change at all. Looks like Spark Desktop is going to be the default email client on my iMac.