Update: Outlook 2010 SP1: Mailto’s will use the default account for messages. See Changes in SP1 below for more information.
Update: Outlook 2010 SP1 includes the May 10 2011 hotfix addresses issues with default IMAP accounts when there are multiple accounts in the profile. See Solution for default IMAP accounts: Create a fake POP3 account for an explanation of the problem (now addressed by SP1).
When you use Microsoft Outlook 2010 and have multiple accounts delivered to different *.pst files, Outlook doesn’t use the default account set in Account settings. Instead, it uses the account associated with the mailbox or *.pst file the folder you are viewing is stored in. This change in behavior takes some getting used to, but its my experience that once they understand how it works, most users with multiple POP3 or Exchange accounts like it.
This feature not as well liked by users with an IMAP account as their primary account and POP3 accounts delivered to the default *.pst file. Instead of using the default IMAP account as it did in previous versions, Outlook 2010 sends new mail using a POP3 account that is delivered to the *.pst. When the IMAP user sends a new message to a contact or starts a new message after viewing the calendar, Outlook chooses a POP3 account as the sending account.
The obvious solution is to use a different *.pst file for the POP3 accounts, but if that is not acceptable, you can use a macro to always open a new message with the default account selected. Others may want use create toolbar buttons to open a new message with a specific account selected.
Registry key to force account selection every time
This fix is simple, but can get annoying, fast, since it forces the user to select an account every time they send a new message. (Replies and Forwards always use the account the message arrived on.)
This might be good for people who use multiple accounts and frequently (accidently) send using the wrong account, especially if they are sending sensitive documents, as it will almost eliminate accidently sending email from the wrong account.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\outlook\options
Value Name: ForceAccountSelection
Value type: REG_DWORD: 1 for force, 0 to disable.
Notes: You need to create the path if it does not exist. You can also set this using the Office 2010 group policy templates.
The value type is the same for both 32-bit and 64-bit Outlook.
If you don’t want to edit the registry yourself, you can run this registry file to set the ForceAccountSelection key
Warning: As reported by a user in New E-Mail Button Not Working, this tweak may prevent the New item buttons in Contacts and other folders from working.
Changes in Outlook 2010 SP1
Update: Outlook 2010 SP1 addresses issues with multiple accounts in a profile and IMAP is set as the default account.
It addresses this problem: When you have multiple accounts and an IMAP account in Outlook 2010 and you change the default sending account to the IMAP account, you may experience the following issues:
- When you click a mailto link from a browser or from Outlook, the default sending account is the Exchange Server account instead of the IMAP account.
- When you create a new email message, the Exchange Server account is selected instead of the IMAP account.
Out of the box, the update uses the default account for Send to commands but not for new messages created while viewing the default pst file (when a POP account is assigned to the default pst file), unless you set a registry value to always force the use of the default account.
To force all new messages to use the default account, browse to the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
Create a new DWORD value named NewItemsUseDefaultSendingAccount
Value: 1
If you prefer not to edit the registry yourself, we have a registry file ready to run: NewItemsUseDefaultSendingAccount
Solution for default IMAP accounts: Create a fake POP3 account
Note: this method is not necessary if you use Outlook 2010 SP1. Mailto’s should now use the default account.
When clicking on a “mailto:” entry on a web page or using the Send to command in other applications, Outlook opens a new email. In older versions, the From account was the default From account in Account settings. Outlook 2010 uses the account assigned to the default message store, causing problems for users with IMAP accounts or Exchange server mailboxes where a POP3 account is default. The solutions mentioned previously won’t work because Simple MAPI is calling up Outlook.
While I don’t have a good solution for Exchange accounts (setting a PST as the default can have undesirable effects with the Exchange account), try this solution for IMAP accounts. Also, if you are using the Send to Mail Recipient command to send files in Windows Explorer, a custom SendTo shortcut may be a better solution.
- Create a second account for the IMAP address
- Set it up as a POP3 account, with “mail” as the pop server name.
- Use the correct SMTP info for the server and logon information.
- Make sure it is delivered to the default PST.
- Click More Settings and configure the Outgoing server settings.
You’ll need to uncheck ‘Test account settings’ before clicking Next to complete the dialog as the POP3 account test will error.
When you return to the Account Settings dialog, set this account as your default email account.
Close the account settings dialog and return to Outlook.
Next, you’ll need to press Ctrl+Alt+S on your keyboard to open the Send & Receive Settings dialog.
Select the send and receive profile and click Edit.
Select the new “fake” account and uncheck the option to Receive mail.
Once you do this, Outlook should always use the desired account for sending but because the server is fake and you aren’t receiving mail on it, you won’t try to download mail.
Drawback: sent mail will be stored in the local Sent folder, not the IMAP sent folder. You can either use rules to move the sent items or move them manually.
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Last reviewed on Mar 14, 2012
Actually, I have I question actually. If I already set up Outlook 2010 with gmail as imap and some pop3 emails coming in also and brought in my contacts from gmail using a csv file… and now BOOM! I realized that my default account isn’t working and someone told me I should have reconfigured the gmail imaps as pops, so I did and of course that didn’t help… so I changed them back.
And yes, I was backing up some place in between all this…
Now, I’ve gotten to the point that I have over 1000 email files in a handfull of pst files.
I just want to start all over.
Do I just back up? or do I just manually copy all the pst files?
Then how do I know I have them all?
I can’t use the easy transfer because is corrupts the files in 2010, correct?
There is so much going on in the background of this program that as someone like me who loved to program raw in DOS and have control, I want to throw my Android phone out the window because it is not helping this situation at all because it needs the imap accounts!
Any constructive suggestions?
If you put Outlook into offline mode first, then the transfer or export/import will work. If you do it with Outlook working online, it will corrupt your OST file.
Help. On boot-up of Outlook, I need the dialog box that allows me to select the User. Right now, Outlook boots-up with the administrator user and does not allow me to select any otther user. Where is the setting in Outlook that causes the program to pause on boot-up to allow one to choose the user name?
I’m sorry to ask this here since it’s about Outlook 2011 for Mac but I have one of the same problems listed here and cannot find an answer anywhere. I have multiple accounts (an IMAP account and a POP3 account). The POP account is the default and I want all new mail to be sent from it. It is set as default but when I choose “New Mail” it chooses whichever account I have selected at the time. Since OSX has no registry, I can’t try the solution in this article. Any thoughts? Thank you.
In this case, where you want to only send from one account, never from the other, change the From address and the SMTP to use the other accounts info. I need to boot my mac to check the specifics of how to change this in outlook 2011, but in the account settings there should be a field for the From address, separate from the account’s login address. In the SMTP field enter the server name you want to send from and the authentication you need to log into it.
Oops… I might have mixed this up with a Jim on a mailing list that has a similar problem, but with 2 pop accounts. The above advice works if you never want to reply from the other account. If you reply to messages from the second account and want the replies to use the second account, this won’t work. Must go boot my mac…
I’m using some Distribution Group in Exchange 2010 to forward through a 3rd party pop3 connector some “shared” mailboxes.
Client-side I have multiple accounts, but in this case, making a reply or a forward I have the Exchange account as sender by default.
What I need is to have the address in TO (or in second step in BC or third step in BCC) as sender.
Any ideas?
THANKS!!
Daniele
I dont have i map only 6 pop 3 accounts I did the registry update and I had to add the keys and the last value was a dword and this worked great always asks me what accout to send from and replies work the same way they used to
To force all new messages to use the default account, browse to the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\outlook\options
You make the folder by right clicking and using New – Folder
the after you make the options folder right click on it and pick New (Dword32 Bit Qword 64 Bit) on the right hand side you will see a highlighted area fill as below (Value Name) then right click that value after its named and change value to 1 or 0 as below
Value Name: ForceAccountSelection
Value type: REG_DWORD: 1 for force, 0 to disable.
Notes: You need to create the path if it does not exist. You can also set this using the Office 2010 group policy templates.
The value type is the same for both 32-bit and 64-bit Outlook.
Thank you to whom ever figured out the way to do this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have two POP3 email accounts (wife’s and mine) that we’re trying to set-up separately in Outlook 2010. Mine was already in there and worked (and still works just fine). I added her profile and even have it working to where Outlook prompts us to choose which profile we want when you start Outlook.
When we open the new 2nd profile, there is a main profile with Inbox/Drafts/Sent/Deleted/Junk, etc… underneath the main “Outlook Data File” section at the top left. However, no emails download into that Inbox at all. Instead, Outlook also created a second email profile that shows up just below all of those folders (as if it’s a 2nd email account on the profile). In that section, there is ONLY an Inbox. Emails do download into it. If we send an email it goes into Sent at the top section. If we delete from the lower one, it just vanishes, since there’s no Deleted box down there. How do I remove the “extra” email profile below and just get everything in the top one?
That was useful, thank you.My wife and I have just arrived on Outlook 2010 after using many previous Outlooks. I like the sending policy you described above: we have three mailboxes (3 main pst files): one personal mailbox each (POP) and my business mailbox (Exchange). I set up some rules to separate the incoming emails into three folders, but now realise that is unnecessary for the reasons you describe above.
So I would now like to delete the rules that move our personal emails to those two now-redundant folders. But since Outlook always starts up as though I am the Exchange user, I can no longer see the rules I set up to move our personal emails. I would like to know how to persuade Outlook (when starting up) that I am one of the other two users. Can you help with that?
Also, we have a problem making Outlook use the right contacts folders. There seem to be two for each account – most of them empty; in one of our accounts we have to tell Outlook which contacts folder to look at every time we send an email.
I suspect this is all better than before, once one masters it. But we haven’t yet.
Regards
Are you using 3 profiles or 1 profile with 3 accounts? If you use 3 profiles, open Control panel and type Mail in the search field – Click Show Profiles and set it to ask which profile when starting.
Each account will have 2 contacts – Contact and Suggested Contacts. Click the Address book link on the ribbon and then Tools, Options menu in the open Address book. You can set outlook to start with a specific address book or set it to choose the address book based on which folder set you are views.
Diane, Thank you. I was pretty sure I had set up three profiles, but actually there is only one visible: all three mailboxes are visible in that profile.
I am going to re-set this, and have two profiles: one to give access to the personal email addreses that my wife and I use. The second profile would give access to my business account.
For some reason I cannot easily explain, I have found that with every new release of Outlook/Exhange (which I have been using since Exchange was invented) I have struggled to set up the Contacts/Address book relationship properly. I think I must be a slow learner!
I will take your advice about Contacts.
Regards
Diane, everything is now exactly as I want it. Thank you.
I have a question with regards to shared mailbox, i’m a member of this shared mailbox and would like to “reply, or forward” an incoming mail from that mailbox with the field “FROM” to be defaulted to my email address rather than the shared email address. Is this possible?
I have a business email account I no longer use. I may still receive emails to that account for a few months. Can I forward all my incoming email to another account? If so, How. I tried using the “Rules” and that didn’t work.
I don’t want to delete it yet, and I’d rather not have to check it all the time.
What type of account / where is it hosted? While you could configure rules in outlook, they only run when outlook us running. If you have the old account and your other account in your profile, you may be able to deliver the old mail to the new account’s folders and configure it to use your other account as the reply address.
The other option is to configure a forwarding rule on the mail server. This will forward all mail as it arrives to the old account and it will work until the administrator deletes the account. This is the preferred method as the mail is forwarded as it arrives and you can remove the old account from outlook.
I handle 3 Pop3 accounts in my Outlook 2010. I do NOT want a default account because I use an outlook plugin for Infusionsoft.com to record sent emails to our work database. I want the email being sent From each different account to appear or record as from that actual user and NOT the default account. I’ve tried everything I can think of playing around with my settings… can anyone help? In layman’s terms?
@Rebekah – do you have all 3 accounts delivering to one pst file? If you use separate pst files, Outlook 2010′s behavior is to use the account assigned to the folders you are viewing as the default.
If you deliver all mail to one data file, the registry key to force you to choose the account is what you need. Yes, it’s a PITA, but prevents you from using the wrong account for new messages. (Replies are sent from the account that downloaded the message.)
@Diane I have no idea. I assume 3 accts to one pst file…although I don’t really know what that is. =) I mean, I can “select” which account I’m sending from in the new mail message, but it will still send via the one and record that way… So what’s the procedure? Is the above instructions and screen shots supposed to alleviate this? You can DM me – Any help is appreciated.
I have two accounts active for email with one appropriately set as the default. On the data tab it still has an old account that I want to delete but it is listed as the default so it won’t allow me to delete it. I would like to change the default in the data tab but it won’t let me. When I click on the two active accounts it won’t let me make them the default. Is there some fix to this? Thanks,Mike
You have made a life long convert
I have been fighting the embarrassment of the wrong return address on mail for weeks.
Outlook 2010, Multiple Accounts and the Default Account | Slipstick …
Fixed it all
thank you Thank You THANK YOU
I encountered a problem when I was setting up my Microsoft Outlook 2010. I have multiple POP3 e-mail accounts and in all previous Outlook version I had no problem setting them up. This time round, I have already set up two POP3 accounts but when I started to set up the third one, Outlook would show me “The Requested Operations Failed” at the last stage. I thought my third e-mail account was faulty and I went on to set up my fourth e-mail account but to encounter the same error message. My question is–is there a limit to the number of e-mail accounts? What should I do to set up the rest of my e-mail accounts? I have four more to go.
There is not a limit to the number of accounts you can configure in outlook – well, there might be, but i have not heard of anyone who hit the limit. I know 15 accounts is possible, so you are ok with 4.
Are you using Outlook in Compatibility mode?
I think I have a related but slightly different issue.
I have a personnel account and am also part of a group. The group is required because I work in a team, but it is first come first served in terms of reply, but I am then left with both the initial email as well as the reply from one of my colleagues, is there anyway in which this can be deleted at the point that it is responded to?
I fear this is not possible, but any ideas would be appreciated.
Tks
What type of email account do you use? Are the group mails in their own mailbox?
I use several pc’s from work to home and have an iphone. I was trying to get my iphone to work with Microsoft Outlook and tried different apps on different computers with my iphone and now my iphone contact list is filled with duplicates many of which are empty other than the name or company name. On my Icloud account I have 7000 backed up contacts from either my phone or I guess my computers? I have multiple PST files from various computers and want to figure out the most efficient way to edit all this mess into one good contact list and put it back into Outlook, my gmail account, my phone and the Icloud account. I don’t blame you if you pretend like this comment never came because I have been living with this mess for months> Yes I am a spaz. Thanks for any suggestions you can offer.
If they are duplicated because of all the syncing, see Remove Duplicate Contacts for duplicate remover tools. If some contacts might contain updated data, see Combine Duplicate Contacts.
I would probably move all contacts back into Outlook (in the icloud & other folders, select all, then use the move to command or drag to outlook’s contacts), run a duplicate checker then copy what is left back to the icloud folder. We have a tutorial showing how to move/copy contacts here: .