You might have multiple Internet email addresses configured in their Outlook, for work, private matters, etc. Sometimes you might experience the problem that sending out a new email message with the wrong sending account.

Since Outlook 2010, the account selection behavior for new messages has been updated. Outlook 2010 and 2013 automatically use the account associated with the data file you have in focus as the sending account for new email message.

If you understand how it works, you might like this change in behavior. But if you dont, you might hate it and would like to revert it back. Here we will talk about a few approaches to disable this behavior, to avoid above sending problem.

Revert it back to how it works in Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 will always use the default email account for new messages. If you have Outlook 2010 SP1 or Outlook 2013, we can add a registry value to always force the use of the default account, the same as how it works in Outlook 2007:

For Outlook 2010:

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
DWORD value: NewItemsUseDefaultSendingAccount
Value: 1

For outlook 2013:

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
DWORD value: NewItemsUseDefaultSendingAccount
Value: 1

Have Outlook prompt you to select a sending account everytime

Another way to avoid the issue is to prevent Outlook from populating the From field for you. We can do this by adding below forceaccountselectionregistry key (Please note, if this path doesnt exist, you can create it manually):

For Outlook 2010:

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\14.0\outlook\options

DWORD value: forceaccountselection

Value: 1

For Outlook 2013:

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\outlook\options

DWORD value: forceaccountselection

Value: 1

Force Outlook to use the default account by running a simple macro

In addition to setting the registry key to force Outlook to use the default account (the first one that listed in your Account Settings dialog), we can also accomplish this by running a simple macro.

Here is an example:

Public Sub NewMail_WithDefaultAccount()

Dim ol_NS As Outlook.NameSpace

Dim ol_Mail As Outlook.MailItem

Set ol_NS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")

Set ol_Mail = Application.CreateItem(olMailItem)

    Ol_Mail.SendUsingAccount = ol_NS.Accounts.Item(1)

Ol_Mail.Display

Set ol_Mail = Nothing

Set ol_NS = Nothing

End Sub

This macro can be assigined to a buton on the ribbon or on the Quick Access Toolbar. To create a new email with your default email account, simply click the button on the ribbon