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Mail keeps telling me to "Update My Forward To" Email Address

thewhitehart

thewhitehart

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 9, 2005
1,106
609
The town without George Bailey
I'm running Sonoma 14.4.1 on the M3 MacBook Air. When I try to compose a new message in Mail, the new message tries to default to "Hide My Email" for the From field and presents a popup stating "Update Your "Forward To" Email Address Go to Hide My Email settings, and change your "Forward To" address to one that is set up in the Mail App."

The "Forward To" address is set up in Mail. I tried changing it in the Hide My Email settings both on iCloud and on the Mac, and I still get the popup. What's worse is my default address is missing from the From field after the popup is displayed, and closing the compose window causes Mail to save a draft to a new On My Mac Drafts folder that it creates. The problem sorts itself out after a while, but then just happens randomly when trying to compose a new message. It also causes iCloud Mail to glitch on the iPhone.

Any suggestions? The bug makes Mail practically unusable for me.

Screenshot 2024-04-19 at 21.36.03.png
 
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I just recently started noticing this issue as well... and my "Automatically Bcc > myself" stopped populating in replies and forwards.
 
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I had the same thing happen to me and toggling the setting fixed it for me. My "From" dropdown in new messages only showed my official Apple ID address (@mac.com in my case) and none of my other addresses (including the automatic @me.com and @icloud.com ones).

Go to System Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Hide My Email ad in the gear menu at the bottom of the list is "Change forwarding address". Pick any other value and things will sync back up (not sure what to do if you don't have any other options, but I would believe it only happens when you have options). Go back to Mail and create a new email and you'll get the error one more time, but then the "From" dropdown will populate and things start working. You can change it back to the original forwarding address at that point if you want.
 
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Great, now when I click Reply to an email, Apple Mail is inserting "Hide my mail" into the "From" line and I have to close and open Mail a few times to get it to let me Reply from my actual email address

This is getting out of hand
 
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Has any solution been found for this issue? Apple support zero help! I'm on 14.3.1 and have been advised by software companies not to upgrade to 14.4.1 as original poster has done.

I am at the point of looking for a new mail software.
 
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thewhitehart said:
What's worse is my default address is missing from the From field after the popup is displayed
Click to expand...
Same here, then it defaults to a Hide My email that I never even enabled.

I discovered my default email address in this screen in Mail prefs (where it now shows my @mac.com address) was blank. I added it back and it worked a couple days, then disappeared again and went back to using Hide My. I added my default email back yesterday and it has been working so far, but obviously something is buggered here.

Screenshot_2024-05-01_at_3_41_48 PM.png
 
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I found a fix that is working for me, but you have to basically do it daily (at least in my case). If you go to System Settings > Apple ID > iCloud Mail and toggle Sync this Mac to Off then On, it fixes it for the day so far. I have to keep doing this on a daily basis which is extremely annoying, but at least this gets it working.

Update - Sometimes have to do this multiple times a day. Very annoying.

1714664901276.png
 
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This is beyond annoying now

I just tried sending an email and had to open and close 20 new emails before the "Update your..." error message stopped
 
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This has been happening for weeks here as well, getting really tired and I am using iCloud as an alternative for the time being.
 
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I’m heading to the Genius Bar on Friday and will probably get no further than what Apple support has been providing us as of late. I'm hoping that our conversations can expedite an update, but I'll report back if I learn anything.
 
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ltr999 said:
I solved the issue by logging in to iCloud.com on Safari. I wonder if this is related to iCloud account issues after the mass reset/disruption that happened in the last week or so. https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/26/signed-out-of-apple-id-account-problem-password/
Click to expand...

ChromeCrescendo said:
Do you mean it solved the issue because you are now using Mail via the iCloud.com website or, that merely logging into the iCloud.com website stopped the error messages in the Apple Mail app?

Thank you
Click to expand...
Whoa this fixed it for me, too!
 
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I just went into the Genius Bar today; we ran a diagnostic, which may have been pointless, haha. (I'm running 14.4.1 on an M2 Macbook Pro.)

They suggested to Erase All Content and Settings, so we’ll see if that “squashes the bug.”

It seems that some of you may have found a solution. I’m thinking a future update/patch is in the works.
 
This is still an issue for me. I have tried all of the above solutions. The best one is in Apple Mail settings on my Mac to reconnect the email address in accounts. Seems like there is a software bug that forgets the email address. Once connected it stays good for approximately 3 days. Then fails again on all devices (phone, Mac, iCloud). The fix is quick now but unbelievably stupid. Apple support are no help.
 
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ltr999 said:
I solved the issue by logging in to iCloud.com on Safari. I wonder if this is related to iCloud account issues after the mass reset/disruption that happened in the last week or so. https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/26/signed-out-of-apple-id-account-problem-password/
Click to expand...

BeatCrazy said:
Whoa this fixed it for me, too!
Click to expand...

I tried this and it fixed it for about an hour and then, when I opened Mail again, I kept repeatedly getting the error

Oh well, fingers crossed that Apple fixes this
 
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Cooper27 said:
This is still an issue for me. I have tried all of the above solutions. The best one is in Apple Mail settings on my Mac to reconnect the email address in accounts. Seems like there is a software bug that forgets the email address. Once connected it stays good for approximately 3 days. Then fails again on all devices (phone, Mac, iCloud). The fix is quick now but unbelievably stupid. Apple support are no help.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, there is no fix yet, with Apple Support and Apple Genius Bar Specialists not having direct communication with the Apple Mail Software Team.

Please share your concern, too: https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html
 
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