#1371 accepted
xwordfun

customize reply header

Reported by xwordfun | January 4th, 2016 @ 10:06 PM

Is there a way to customize the header that appears at the top of the "quote" of an email that I am replying to? Right now it says "On [date], at [time], [Original sender] wrote:"

I would like to have a reply header as follows:

From: name [email address]
Sent: Date, time
To: name [email address]
Subject: title of subject

I'm sorry if you have already answered this question elsewhere. I'm new to MailMate. I've searched the archive and looked online and didn't see an answer.

Thanks!

Comments and changes to this ticket

  • benny

    benny January 5th, 2016 @ 08:54 AM

    • State changed from “new” to “resolved”

    Look for MmReplyWroteString on this page. Let me know if this does not solve your problem.

    Are you sure it's a good idea? It's quite non-standard and redundant with such a verbose header (mainly seen in the always very non-standard Microsoft email clients).

  • xwordfun

    xwordfun February 2nd, 2016 @ 03:49 AM

    Hello again.

    Sorry to bother you. But I've tried a few variations in terminal and can't seem to get the header format to change at all. The most recent variant that I tried was:

    defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmReplyWroteString -string 'From: ${from.name:${from.address}} Date: %e %b %Y, at %k:%M To: ${to.name:${to.address}} Subject: ${subject}’

    Ideally, I'd like to get From / date / to / subject on different lines

    I'm sure this must be simple to someone who knows even a little about computer programming. But unfortunately, that is not my area of expertise.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated. Other than this, I have really loved using Mailmate over the last few weeks and I've purchased a license.

    Thank you very much.

  • benny

    benny February 11th, 2016 @ 01:16 PM

    Thanks for the support!

    First, note that you must relaunch MailMate for the change to take effect.

    Try this:

    defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmReplyWroteString -string 'From: ${from.name:${from.address}}\nDate: %e %b %Y, at %k:%M\nTo: ${to.name:${to.address}}\nSubject: ${subject}\n'
    

    Note the special code for newlines: \n.

  • xwordfun

    xwordfun February 11th, 2016 @ 10:16 PM

    This works works perfectly. Thank you very much!

  • hieracosphinx

    hieracosphinx February 20th, 2018 @ 12:22 AM

    Hello. Thanks for making a great app.

    I've tried the terminal preferences entry you posted on 22 Feb 2016 but I just get the names not the addresses - I get:

    From: John Doe
    Date: 19 Feb 2018, at 23:22
    To: Jane Doe
    Subject: Your email

    Also, I would like a slightly different format, ideally the one you get when you forward mail would be great:
    - quoted text, including the spacer line below the header info
    - CCs included if present
    - seconds and offset from GMT included in date/time
    - order of lines to match the forward message settings
    (should have angular brackets round email addresses but these do not seem to have made it into the html display')

    From: John Doe john.doe@example.com
    To: Jane Doe jane.doe@example.com
    Cc: Fred Doe fred.doe@example.com
    Subject: Your email
    Date: 19 Feb 2018, at 23:22 (GMT +00:00)

    I've tweaked the terminal entry to this version below to try to include the UTC time offset, but it doesn't display email addresses, I can't get cc to work, the timezone offset has no colon unlike in the 'forward' example above, and it doesn't add quoting characters:

    defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmReplyWroteString -string 'From: ${from.name:${from.address}}\nTo: ${to.name:${to.address}}\nSubject: ${subject}\nDate: %e %b %Y, at %k:%M (GMT %z)\n'

    Would you be able to help with a code to put into terminal to display the same information and layout for reply as forward?

    Many thanks for your help.

  • benny

    benny February 24th, 2018 @ 01:19 PM

    • State changed from “resolved” to “accepted”

    @hieracosphinx: There's no way to handle multiple to/cc addresses this way, but without that then something like this should work:

    defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmReplyWroteString -string 'From: ${from.name:?${from.name} <${from.address}>:${from.address}}\nDate: %e %b %Y, at %k:%M\nTo: ${to.name:?${to.name} <${to.address}>:${to.address}}\nTo: ${cc.name:?${cc.name} <${cc.address}>:${cc.address}}\nSubject: ${subject}\n'
    

    I'm afraid there's no way to get the time zone of the original email.

    I'll put this ticket back into the “accepted” state as a request for a more configurable wrote-string behavior, but it's not a high priority at this point.

  • hieracosphinx

    hieracosphinx February 24th, 2018 @ 02:50 PM

    Thanks, that string works. I've made a workaround to the cc issue by putting To and cc on the same line and dropping the 'Cc:' so if it there is a cc this is shown - I reckon that is neater than an empty 'Cc:' line. I also tweaked it to add quoting characters.

    Here is what I used, in case it's useful for anyone else:

    defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmReplyWroteString -string '> From: ${from.name:?${from.name} <${from.address}>:${from.address}}\n> To: ${to.name:?${to.name} <${to.address}>:${to.address}} ${cc.name:?${cc.name} <${cc.address}>:${cc.address}}\n> Subject: ${subject}\n> Date: %e %b %Y, at %k:%M (GMT %z)\n> '

    However it would be good in the long run if you could make it look and work just line the headers you get on forwarded mail (quoting characters and all) and there was an option to choose this or the standard header.

    If you look at the RWH bundle for Apple Mail/Thunderbird you can see an idea of the additional functionality that might be good, in terms of customising the header further.

    The reason I need this, by the way, is in business emails, it's good for me to see the address sent to as well as the person's name, and who was copied in, on each message, especially when a printed or pdf copy of the mails is made for filing or archival purposes. I suspect it's something a lot of users with a business need would find useful and would miss if they've ever had it in a previous mail client.

  • hieracosphinx

    hieracosphinx February 25th, 2018 @ 12:05 AM

    Just to update, while this picks up at least the first cc recipient, it doesn't list more than one 'to' recipient - which is what I think you have said above, Benny. However the headers you get in the email chain when choosing Forward rather than Reply do include more than one to and cc recipient. So hopefully there is a way to include these in the eventual fix, by copying the method used to make the Forward headers?

  • benny

    benny February 26th, 2018 @ 08:48 AM

    The “forward” code is completely hard-coded which means that using it wouldn't give you any flexibility. I'll keep it in mind though since improving the flexibility of the reply-method could naturally also be used to improve the forwarding-method.

  • Padraic Renaghan

    Padraic Renaghan August 14th, 2018 @ 03:51 PM

    I would very much like this, for the same "business email" reasons as @hieracosphinx mentions above. Frequently I get a reply message from someone, which started as forward and replies in a long thread, with recipients being added and removed along the way. It is helpful to be able to see who sent what to whom, which is why the From/To/Date on each reply and forward are very helpful.
    Is there a filter or bundle I can customize to do this?
    And or any chance of getting a template token that returns all To addresses and all CC?
    The multiple to/cc I the only thing preventing the current "reply wrote" setting from taking care of this for me
    Thanks

  • Jordan Kyriakidis

    Jordan Kyriakidis February 5th, 2019 @ 07:19 PM

    This is very important to me as well. It really is standard practice in many businesses.

    Thank you.

  • Stacey Marshall

    Stacey Marshall October 25th, 2019 @ 02:52 PM

    I am also interested in using CC list. Having see that Mailboxes.plist used #recipient I got somewhat excited.
    I'm wanting to use it within a MailMate bundle.

    thanks Benny.

  • Klay

    Klay April 5th, 2020 @ 01:08 AM

    I always prefer the shorter reply header for personal emails, but for work purposes, having the full list of everyone in the To and CC fields is important for a variety of reasons.

    Unfortunately, even though it is inefficient/verbose/non-standard behaviour, the sheer number of Microsoft clients using this reply format has made it the "norm" for a lot businesses and people.

    It would be nice to be able to use both reply header formats depending on the email account I'm responding from.

    Thanks all.

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