Out of the box (at least with an “internet plan”), the BlackBerry doesn’t support multiple e-mail personalities (multiple “from” addresses). This absolutely shocked me. The BlackBerry is widely regarded as being a superior mobile e-mail device, so much so that users will forgive pretty much any other shortcomings it may have in other areas, so to discover that it lacked the functionality I had in my mail clients back in the mid-90’s was really a surprise.
There are two products that people recommend to provide multiple From addresses for the BlackBerry:
- BBReply (free, open source)
- PocketDay (commercial, there is a stand-alone util that does just the Reply-To as well according to what I’ve gleaned from the various BB forums)
Unfortunately, neither of these actually provide multiple From addresses or “personality” support, they only allow you to set a Reply-To field for the message. I tried to get BBReply working, and failed.
The 
solution 
Sure, I have to remember which real e-mail address is have masquerading as a Gmail address (the From options show the “real” e-mail address), but I set up the Gmail accounts in a smart way so that isn’t much of an issue.
Do I think it’s ridiculous to jump through these hoops to get multiple “From” functionality on the BlackBerry? Oh yes. Have I decided that it’s not worth fighting against how the BlackBerry wants to work? Yes again. 
I’m complaining a lot about things I find to be shortcomings on the BlackBerry, mainly because I don’t like taking a giant step backwards in certain areas when I “upgrade”, but there are some really nice things as well; as I’ve noted in previous posts.
There is also one big issue that makes the BlackBerry very appealing that I haven’t really covered yet. More on that later.
UPDATE: This solution works on T-Mobile, but may not work on Cingular (see comments).
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Matt W. adds this Comment:
I’m not sure I understand how this is getting you multiple from addresses … Are you sending email to one of your gmail accounts and it’s specially formatted so gmail wraps around and forwards the message on to your recipient or something?
April 25th, 2006 at 6:17 am
Alex adds this Comment:
I added the Gmail addresses as accounts for the BlackBerry to check, and (in the BIS account set-up screen) set the “Return Address” for each account to be an address I want to be able to send from.
When I send an e-mail, I can now choose from:
(hidden)@tmo.blackberry.net
(hidden 1)@gmail.com
(hidden 2)@gmail.com
(hidden 3)@gmail.com
(hidden 4)@gmail.com
Each of these has a “real” e-mail address that it uses as the From address.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Matt W. adds this Comment:
Hmm, that’s weird. In my BIS setup I can only choose one from address or reply-to address. I guess BIS is different between cingular and t-mobile which is sort of surprising. Anyhow, glad you got something that works for you.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Alex adds this Comment:
I can set the Name and E-mail for each account I add.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:23 am
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[…] The main reason I’ve decided to make the jump to the BlackBerry, despite it’s shortcomings, is that I no longer have any faith in the Palm OS as a platform. […]
October 24th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
James L adds this Comment:
I’d love to be able to view multiple gmail accounts from the same gmail installation on my blackberry. Is this possible?
July 21st, 2008 at 8:41 am