How can I Include Original Message When Using Filters to Reply
Hi,
Actually, I have 2 questions:
1. I use filter and templates to automate reply to some of my messages; but the problem is that when you reply in this way, Thunderbird doesn't include the original message in the reply. Is there anyway to get Thunderbird to include the original message when the reply is automated through filters?
2. When I I use filters and templates to automate reply to some of my messages, Thunderbird automatically adds the prefix "Auto: " to the subject line. I definitely don't want this. Any configuration that I can use to prevent this?
Thanks for Your Help
All Replies (5)
set your filter to run "after classification" and ensure that Thunderbird is configured to keep a copy of mail on the local machine. It is hard to quote what has not been downloaded.
Thanks for your reply Matt; I changed the settings for all my filters to "Filter after junk classification", and I think I have always kept a copy of mail on the local drive; but unfortunately, this didn't work. My original message is still not added to the messages replied to by my filters.
An observation…
I have never seen it stated explicitly, nor written down anywhere, but I often get the impression that Thunderbird was designed to be used in a particular way. It has a sort of naïve honesty. The target user is probably an individual, using it at home. Thunderbird doesn't sit quite so well in a commercial environment, nor would it be attractive to mischief makers.
Examples:
- You can't easily send a message to a large (>60) number of correspondents. It is not good for mail shots or mass mailing.
- You can't easily send a message using an arbitrary "from" email address. Anonymous and fictitious sender addresses are discouraged.
- Addresses of correspondents are shown in clear. Outlook has a way of suggesting that a message can be sent to "Dave, Mary and Bill" and will appear similarly in the recipient's Inbox in Outlook. This leads some users to assume that the email addresses are omitted from the message and so their owners' privacy is assured. But if you want to reply to a message, it must contain those addresses. So, under the hood, those addresses are present but hidden. In Thunderbird this is all made explicit.
- Outlook will fill out a message with a large amount of largely spurious formatting definitions, increasing the size of the message and the space and time it takes to process. It will silently substitute fonts and change type sizes. Did it ask you if you wanted to do all this, or tell you that it was going to do so? Thunderbird mark-up is minimalist by contrast.
- No support for embedded music and video.
- It doesn't play nicely in command line operation; you get a pre-filled Write window but you still have to click "Send". Does not lend itself to automated or bulk mailing usage.
In your case, you are sending an automated reply. Thunderbird is being brutally honest, and makes no attempt to mislead your correspondent into thinking this is anything but an automated reply. It may be possible to change that "auto" but I haven't found a preference setting for it yet.
As usual, Thunderbird tries to be standards compliant:
"3.1.5. Subject field
The Subject field SHOULD contain a brief indication that the message is an automatic response, followed by contents of the Subject field (or a portion thereof) from the subject message. The prefix "Auto:" MAY be used as such an indication. If used, this prefix SHOULD be followed by an ASCII SPACE character (0x20)."
Thanks for your reply Zenos. Yes, it seems that there is no way to change the subject line when filters are used to do auto-reply.
There is only one way, change the source code and recompile.
The hard coded entry is in mailnews/compose/src/nsMsgComposeService.cpp
nsString subject(NS_LITERAL_STRING("Auto: ")); // RFC 3834 3.1.5.
+ subject.Append(templateSubject);