iCal invitations send from wrong account

When users create events in iCal, they are presented with an option to add attendees to the event and have the program send an email invitation to the listed individuals. Some users are having problems with this feature, in which the wrong account is being used to receive invitation replies.

Apple Discussions poster Emily Kessler writes:

"I have two emails account, personal (MobileMe) and work (general POP email account, not MobileMe). When I send personal invitation in iCal from my MobileMe email address, they ALWAYS get returned to my work email address. I cannot figure this out, and it is driving me batty."

To check which email account is being appended to invitations in iCal, users can open the sent iCal event in TextEdit (right-click the ".ics" file and select "open with"). The email that is used will be displayed next to the "ORGANIZER" tag, so users can troubleshoot where this address is being accessed in either Address Book or Mail.

There is no way in the iCal application to set the default email account used for sending invitations. Instead, iCal uses the default email address in Mail to send invitations from. This may be one source of error, since users receiving an email from this address may send a direct reply as confirmation of event attendance and if the reply-to email is incorrect the reply will be sent to the wrong address. In addition, iCal seems to access user's personal vCard in Address Book to embed reply-to emails to the ".ics" calendar invitation file. This address can be different than the one used to send the invitation email, and is used when invitation recipients import invitations and send a reply via iCal. Because of the possibilities of two emails being used, the fixes for this issue have revolved in part around changing the order of email address accounts listed in Mail as well as modifying the "Me" vCard in Address Book to avoid confusion regarding which email iCal uses for replying.

Fixes

Change the default email address in Mail Go to Mail's preferences, and in the "Accounts" section, drag the desired email account to the top of the list. While this will not change the embedded email address in iCal invitations, this will be the account from which iCal events are sent. To change the embedded email address that is replied to when users accept or deny the invitation, follow the next set of fixes.

Change the email account field used in Address Book It appears that the reply-to address may also come from the email address organization in Address Book. First, users should open an iCal event invitation in a text editor and check for the email address used (as described above). Then find which email address field is using that address and change the address in that field to the one desired for use with iCal invitations.

Remove all but one email address field from the Address Book template Some users have found that iCal seems to prefer emails based on the vCard templates as opposed to the specific contents in the card. If users have set up more than one email field in their vCard templates, then iCal may get confused as to which email address to use. Go to the Address Book preferences, and under the "Templates" section ensure that only one email address field is there. This will not limit the ability to add more email addresses, but by default the Address Book will only show one, and this should be the address embedded in iCal invitations. Ensure that this field in the "Me" contact is the desired email address to use, and in addition ensure that the same address is the default account in Mail as described above.

Remove all but the desired email from Address Book If changing the vCard templates does not work, users can force iCal to use one address by removing all addresses from the "Me" contact except for the desired address. This should work, but will prevent Mail from associating the removed email addresses with the current user, which may affect some email filters, or address auto-completion, and groupings, etc; however, this depends on the user's setup.

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