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Users of .Mac will know that Apple have added the ability to setup and use email aliases, or "virtual" email addresses that allow you to keep you "real" .Mac address private. Getting them to work with Apple's Mail application (Panther 10.3.6, Mail 1.3.9) is not as straightforward as it should be, but you can send and receive mail using each alias with a bit of tinkering...

Update 08.09.05: Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) changes all this; you no longer need to set up an IMAP account in order to use your .Mac aliases. See below.

Working with .Mac aliases

How can I use Mail to send/reply to email using a .Mac alias?

1. Set up your .Mac aliases via the .Mac homepage
2. Open Apple's Mail application and view your .Mac account details under Preferences > Accounts. Copy down the settings for Incoming Mail Server (mail.mac.com), User Name (your .Mac username without the "@mac.com" part), Password (your .Mac password), and Outgoing Mail Server (smtp.mac.com):

   

3. Create a new IMAP or POP account, completing the fields for Description (any name you want), Email Address (list your "real" .Mac email address, followed by each alias, with each address separated by a comma), Full Name (any name you want), Incoming Mail Server (mail.mac.com), User Name (your .Mac username without the "@mac.com" part), Password (your .Mac password), and Outgoing Mail Server (smtp.mac.com):

   

4. Click on Server Settings... and choose Password under Authentication; enter your .Mac username (without the "@mac.com" part) and your .Mac password then click OK:

   

5. Delete your original .Mac account (if you don't you'll get duplicates of every message).
6. When you create a new message, select the Account (.Mac alias) from which you wish to send the message.

Colour-coding incoming messages

All my .Mac mail goes to one Inbox. Can I identify messages sent to individual aliases?

1. In Mail, go to Preferences > Rules and choose Add Rule.
2. Create a rule to colour-code incoming messages, so that each alias is assigned a different colour:

   

Changing the "Reply-To:" address

I have email from my own domain forwarded to a .Mac alias: can I set a different (not .Mac) "Reply To:" address?

Redirecting mail sent to myname@mydomain.com to any .Mac alias is easy if your domain name supplier supports email forwarding.

Sending mail from myname@mydomain.com via a .Mac alias is another story. The .Mac SMTP server (used to send mail) insists on a "mac.com" address, so you can't list myname@mydomain.com as an account for sending mail via .Mac. Try listing such a non-.Mac address (myname@mac.com, myname@mydomain.com, etc...) and you'll see the following message:

The sender address myname@mydomain.com was rejected by the server

The server response was: 5.1.0 [myname@mydomain.com]... From address does not match authentication.

You can try to send using a different server. All messages will use this server until you quit or change your network settings.

Following this advice, if you have another account with an ISP who isn't so fussy, you can set your .Mac account to use that account's SMTP server for sending your .Mac account mail (e.g. mail.btopenworld.com):

The "Reply To" address will default to the account (a .Mac address or otherwise) from which the message was sent. In fact, you don't even need to have a .Mac address (real or alias) listed in the Email Address field—myname@mydomain.com, myname2@mydomain.com, myname3@mydomain.com, etc will also work (and you'll still get email sent to your .Mac addresses):

Alternatively, use the .Mac default SMTP server (smtp.mac.com) but specify a "Reply To" address as follows:

1. Click on New to open a new message.
2. In the View menu, select Reply-To Header. This allows you to manually enter a different reply address for each .Mac alias:

   

If you don't want to manually add a Reply-To header each time, and you want to use the same Reply-To address for every outgoing email, check out the Add Headers to Outgoing Email AppleScript here. This solution doesn't let you have a different Reply-To header for each .Mac alias/ account.

Credits: This information was compiled from multiple sources, in particular Apple Discussions and maxosxhints.

Postscript: Mail and Tiger

In the version of Mail shipping with Tiger, there is a new button visible when you set up a .Mac account:

This button connects to the .Mac web interface so you can manage your aliases. When you create a new e-mail message, the Account drop-down menu now includes all of your .Mac aliases in the pick list.

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