Disable sending via Exchange Server, or suitable alternative?

I have two accounts:  An Exchange Server account, and a POP3+SMTP account from my ISP.
I’d like ALL outgoing mail to get sent via the ISP’s SMTP, never via Exchange, but I’d also like the default Reply-To address to always be my Exchange Account, whichever folder I’m sending from.

For IMAP accounts, the advice from other threads is that you can disable SMTP, so they are receive-only.  But there is no such “Enable Service” checkbox to uncheck for an Exchange Server account that I can see.

Nonetheless, I can create an alias for my ISP account that is the same as my address for my Exchange account, and using this will do what I want, BUT there doesn’t appear to be a way to make it always the default sender - not when sending from in a “Local Folder”, and doubly not when sending from in the Exchange Server folder.  That means I have to remember to change it for every message I create or reply to, or it’ll get sent wrong… clearly an unacceptable solution.

Another usability quibble is that in the aliases (Sender) drop-down, the Exchange Server address and the alias-of-my-ISP-address-that-sends-the-reply-to-Exchange-Server are exactly the same. They’re the same email address, obviously, but it would be nice if eM client could detect this and distinguish them in the drop-down by appending " (send via )" or something similar to the drop-down text.

I guess what this boils down to is that I’d need either:

  • The ability to set an alias as the default address for an account, AND

  • The ability to set an Exchange account as receive-only (so use a different account on any reply, even in the Exchange folder, and no sender drop-down option from that account).
    ---- OR ----

  • The ability to set an account alias as the global default for sending, no matter which folder you’re in when you send, AND

  • The ability to distinguish between two identical email addresses in the “Sender” drop-down, when one (or more) are aliases belonging to different accounts.

…which is a bit complicated, but actually what I’m trying to do is pretty simple, and I’m sure there are lost of other people out there who want to do the same thing.

Have I missed some setting(s) that lets me do what I require?

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If not, I’d like to request that the following 4 quite simple features get implemented:

  • Ability to set an alias as the default sender for an account.  (Lots of other people seem to want this too!)

  • Ability to set an account address or account alias as the global default sender (overriding whatever folder you happen to be sending from; and perhaps with an option to also override in the case of replying to an email sent to a different address or alias).

  • Discriminate between identical Sender addresses/aliases in the drop-down by appending the account name to the drop-down text (for those identical email addresses only).  (This could be considered more of a bug-fix than a feature, really).

  • Ability to disable sending for an Exchange Server account (and I don’t just mean blocking that part of the sync process, I mean treating it as an inbox-only account with no outgoing address).  Probably you should also allow the converse:  A send-only account, with a reply-to that must point to a different account).

Thanks,

– Dean

Hello Dean,

Thank you for your detailed post. It’s true that eM Client is lacking these features so I’ll change the post to Idea so other user’s can comment under it. I also added your insight into our EWS feature request list.

Russel