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I have used the following code to send mail from my web application using a gmail account. My question is, can i change the sender address to another address other than original sender(gmail) address? My code is as follows:

System.Net.Mail.MailMessage mail = new System.Net.Mail.MailMessage();
System.Net.NetworkCredential cred = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("sample@gmail.com", "*******");

Whatever i do is useless as i always receive mail from sample@gmail.com. Is it possible to change it?

I have changed to mail.From = new System.Net.Mail.MailAddress("sample@yahoo.com"); but i received the mail with the from address sample@gmail.com and not from the new "From" address. I think gmail smtp overwrites the from address with the original credential.

demo
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5 Answers5

40

This is the solution:

  1. use the codes above to set mail.From = new MailAddress(address, display name)
  2. in Gmail, go to Mail Settings >> Accounts and Import.
  3. Add the email account you will use as sender in "Send Mail As". (tick as Alias)

This works for me

philip
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35

Gmail doesn't allow you to change the FROM to something different than your gmail account.

It doesn't matter what you use, they over-write it, before they relay it on. This prevent spamming/spoofing.

dave wanta
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    Not true, see my comment below. It is possible, as long as you have the other account added as an alias. – Whiskey Mar 24 '14 at 11:05
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    This is not the correct answer, I implemented philip and Simon_Weaver's answers together today and was able to successfully send email from a G Suite alias using the account's main login details (which are different from the alias). – Dave Lucre Jan 21 '17 at 09:50
5

Yes just use the From property of the MailMessage

eg. 

mail.From = "newemail@email.com";

EDIT: Also, see this post for more detailed info on how to emails via gmail in C#

Sending email in .NET through Gmail

EDIT: Although this works for mail in general, it appears this won't work for gmail as google overwrite it before its sent (see @Dave wanta's answer)

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Iain Ward
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  • While you're right in general, when specifically sending mail through Google SMTP servers the "From:" property is overwritten. – scubbo Aug 06 '13 at 13:28
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    This is not true, you CAN use a different from address using Google SMTP. Just make sure it is an alias (as w69rdy points out) and that you follow the RFC 2822 specification (my mistake was having a space between the email and name brackets, it should be test@test.com). The sender address will NOT be changed by Google, but you can influence this because it will use the account marked as default in your gmail settings. – Whiskey Mar 24 '14 at 11:03
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If you have a limited number of senders you can do as @philip suggested. For instance you may have customerservice@example.com, simon@example.com and philip@example.com or even alias@example.com. As long as they are approved senders on the actual gmail.com website you can send from them.

Gmail.com : Sending mail from a different address

If you are expecting to send from an arbitrary user (such as a customer service form on a website where the user enters their email and you don't want them emailing you directly) about the best you can do is this :

        msg.ReplyToList.Add(new System.Net.Mail.MailAddress(email, friendlyName));

If you're in a controlled environment this works great, but please note that I've seen some email clients send to the from address even when reply-to is specified (I don't know which).

Simon_Weaver
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Check #56 and #58. They might be relevant to what you want to do https://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-issues/issues/detail?id=172

Passant El.Agroudy
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