[5.4] Fix for envelope-from & return path alignment with From in MailTemplateFactory

[TLWebdesign]

Pull Request for Issue #46419.

Summary of Changes

Remove the false flag for "auto" on the setFrom method from PHPMailer in the MailTemplateFactory. This will improve the standard Joomla e-mail deliverability because now the Return-Path, envelope-from and From are aligned.
By default Joomla was setting this "auto" flag to false. Although PHPMailer's default is "true".

The behaviour won't change for reply-to. E-mail clients already use From as the fallback if there is no reply-to set.
Bounces now are sent to the wrong place for instance user@server.com instead of the "from mail" set in the configuration, this fix solves that issue.
With this fix SPF and DMARC domains will now be aligned and with that improve e-mail deliverability.

Testing Instructions

Set your "Mailer" to PHP Mail in Global Configuration -> Server -> Mail -> Mailer
Send an e-mail using the test e-mail from the configuration or do a lost password check.
Check e-mail headers and see that headers don't align.

Actual result BEFORE applying this Pull Request

Return-Path and envelope-from DON'T match the From.

Return-Path: <user1@srv1.example.nl>
    (envelope-from <user1@srv1.example.nl>)
From: Example Name <noreply@domain.nl>

Expected result AFTER applying this Pull Request

Return-Path and envelope-from DO match the From.

Return-Path: <noreply@domain.nl>
(envelope-from <noreply@domain.nl>)
From: Example Name <noreply@domain.nl>

Link to documentations

Please select:

• Documentation link for docs.joomla.org:

• No documentation changes for docs.joomla.org needed

• Pull Request link for manual.joomla.org:

• No documentation changes for manual.joomla.org needed

[brianteeman]

I dont see any difference with the headers after applying this PR

[TLWebdesign]

Hi @brianteeman did you use SMTP? according to your headers it looks like you did. This test is about PHPMailer not SMTP. I'll update my instruction to make that more clear. Thanks for testing!

[exlemor]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 5e090e7

I have successfully tested this. The BEFORE and AFTER match PR description - thanks @TLWebdesign.

(In my case, it didn't alter my SPF, DKIM, etc results they were before and after PASS but cool for those configs where it would cause issues)

Thanks for the contribution :)

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[muhme]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 5e090e7

Tested with JBT and Patch Tester, but not seen in MailDev (it may be related to the Return-Path is only added after SMTP delivery into the mailbox). But seen before the PR in Joomla log file:

2025-11-22T18:22:30+00:00       ERROR   57.128.19.244   mail    Error in Mail API: Envelope sender:

And after applying this PR:

2025-11-22T18:22:44+00:00       ERROR   57.128.19.244   mail    Error in Mail API: Envelope sender: jbt-54@test.com

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[muhme]

RTC

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[richard67]

Thanks @TLWebdesign for this PR, and thanks @exlemor and @muhme for testing.