1051589 - Reply from Sent Local Folders uses wrong from address

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Anje]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:30.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/30.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140605174243

Steps to reproduce:

Vista OS
TB v.31.0

I use several pop mail accounts using their own set of folders.
If I want to reuse an email saved in an account Sent folder, I can use either click on 'Reply' button or right click and select 'Edit as New message'.

In both cases a new Write message opens and the FROM has the correct original From email address and the TO has the original TO email address.
This was expected and works ok in all mail accouns.

However, a problem occurs if I auto save or manually move an email to the 'Sent' email in Local Folders Sent folder.



Actual results:

In Local Folders Sent folder.

Test 1.
Right click on a sent email and select 'EDit as new message':
Result:
opens in a new Write mesage with all FROM abd TO and Bcc fields exactly as the original. This is expected and ok.

Test 2.
This email was originally sent using my default email address.
It was originally saved in it's own mail account Sent folder.
I moved the email into Local Folder Sent folder.
Test 1 worked ok.

click on 'Reply' button.
Result: 
inserts same FROM field as FROM and also inserts it into the TO field.
so my default mail account email address was inserted in both FROM and TO.
Does not insert any Correct To or Bcc fields - all ignored.

testing 'Reply-all' button on same email
REsult:
Inserts default email addres in FRom
Inserts TO field into To filed
ignores - does not enter any Bcc field which was used in the original sent email.



Test 3.
This email was originally sent using my secondary (Not default) email address.
It was originally saved in it's own mail account Sent folder.
I moved the email into Local Folder Sent folder.
Test 1 worked ok.

click on 'Reply' button.
Result: 
inserts my default mail account email address in FROM field 
inserts the original FROM secondary email address into the TO field

the original TO field information is ignored and not displayed.

testing 'Reply-all' button on same email
REsult:
inserts my default mail account email address in FROM field 
inserts the original FROM secondary email address into the TO field
inserts the original TO field into a TO field.



both Test 2 and Test 3 confirm that the Default email address account is used regardless of the original 'FROM' field used.

both tests confirm that the Original FROM information is now entered into the TO field.
You would only expect this if replying to an email that is NOT in a 'Sent' folder.

Test 4.
This email was originally sent using a mail account identity associated with the secondary mail account which auto saved the email in Local Folders Sent folder.
test 1 works ok.
Click on 'Reply'
inserts my default mail account email address in FROM field 
inserts the original FROM secondary email address into the TO field
Same as before.

So it does not matter if email is originally auto saved to Local Folders Sent folder or whether it is origianlly saved in the mail account sent folder and then moved.

The default email address is auto inserted into FROM
the original Sent FROM is inserted into the TO field - as I sent this email - no matter what the account - I'm not going to want to automatically send the email from myself via inserted default mail account to myself via account originally sent from.


This renders the 'Reply' button in a Sent folder as inaccurate.







Expected results:

As I answer various questions in forums, I have discovered that many people like to 're-use' a previously sent email. 
They may need to send the original again for some reason.
They may need to send a slightly modified original or include another recipient and resend.

They get very iritated if when they click on 'Reply' the email does not appear as if they had right clicked and selected 'Edit as new message'.

This seems to effect only Local Folders Sent folder so needs a fix, but I would like to suggest that in any 'Sent' folder email, the 'Reply' and 'Reply-all' button is really Not the correct buttons.

because in reality, why would you want to Reply to yourself unless testing.
You want to resuse the original sent email and you want all the header information to be identical to the original.

I would like to suggest that this bug is resolved by replacing the  'Reply' and 'Reply-all' buttons in any 'SENT' folders with 'Edit as New' or 'Re-use' button; then run the code already associated with the right click select ' Edit as new message' option as this code already works. It recreates a new write mesage identical to the original Sent email.

Comment 1

[bambukouk]

using XP and TB 31.1.2
Exactly the same problem when trying to forward from local folder (which collects emails from various POP emails).
It uses "original" reply to email address rather than default address.

Local folder should use default account when forwarding emails and that's it, (unless I tell it otherwise).

Comment 2

[Larry T]

31.2.0 with win7 pro
Since upgrading a week ago, replying and forwarding will no longer use the default account.

New messages still use the default account.

Comment 3

[BvdG]

TB 31.3.0 on OSX.

There is definitely a problem with replies, group replies and forwards of own mails saved in Local Folders. Regardless whether it's in the Inbox, Sent or another local folder, when I forward or reply to a mail that I sent from my default account, the From: becomes a secondary account whose mails are also saved locally (they're both POP accounts).

It happens when my email address is not in the To: or Cc: fields of the original email. Not just on mails I have sent, but also those from others when they've put me in Bcc:. So TB should check the account a mail belongs to when I click Forward or Reply. Or TB should at least use the default account and not a secondary one.

This is definitely a new problem in TB 31; I'm certain it didn't exist in 26 and earlier.

(Further information: my profile has been in use for over 11 years - I have accounts numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8, with identities numbered 2-6, 8, 10-11, and 13-14. The default is id13 from the default account 3, the one TB chooses for self-replies is id5 from account 5.)

Comment 4

[George Hyman]

Any notion of when this might be fixed? Still fails in 31.6 It regularly embarrasses me at work, and may force me (shudder!) to start using outlook for work email processing, resulting in a significant productivity drop!

I may have found a workaround - I declared acct 2 (in this case gmail) the default account, restarted TB, then declared my work account default and restarted again, and lo and behold - things now work right!

Comment 5

[daxdax5]

Reproducible example with forward problem:

Set-up:
 Default account) ME - Inbox remote IMAP, everything else to Local Folders
 Other account) WIFE - everything (Inbox, Sent, Drafts...) at remote IMAP

Problem:
 Email in Local Folders/Sent with:
   From: ME
   To: Alice
   Cc: WIFE

 If forward to Bob the From is: WIFE
 This in completely unexpected and creates confusion.

Fix:
 Only use another account if Default account is not present in the email.

Comment 6

[kevinthekingsson]

Re the above forwarding example, cc is unnecessary.

Set up:
 Default account) ME - Everything at remote IMAP. Business-related items are manually transferred from inbox to a subfolder in local folders.
 Other accounts) 4 others, all IMAP, which I only use in emegencies.

Problem:
 Email in local Folders with:
    From: ME
    To: N.E.Body

 Forwarding results in:
    From: one of my other accounts
    Reply To: ME
    To: blank, awaiting imput.

This has caused severe confusion recently. Some of my messages (the forwarded ones, as it turned out) were getting through to a client: but most were not, because of a problem with their spam filters.

Comment 7

[kevinthekingsson]

As a follow on to the above, I then tried George Hyman's workaround. Thunderbird is now showing the correct From account and no additional Reply To: information. This suggests that maybe the code to define the default user isn't doing its job properly.

Comment 8

[Steve Kelem]

I have 6 mail accounts and Local Folders. When I forward a message from Local Folders, it uses the last account, not the second. Is this a case where "-1" is used as an index instead of "1"?

Comment 9

[Steve Kelem]

Sorry, bad info in my Comment 8. The account that is used when forwarding from Local Folders is 2nd in the list of outgoing servers, but last in the folders tab.

I tried George Hyman's workaround, and it didn't work for Reply or Forward. It still uses the 2nd account in the outgoing servers list.

Comment 10

[Steve Kelem]

Sorry, bad info in my Comment 8. The account that is used when forwarding from Local Folders is 2nd in the list of outgoing servers, but last in the folders tab.

I tried George Hyman's workaround, and it didn't work for Reply or Forward. It still uses the 2nd account in the outgoing servers list.

Thunderbird 38.6.0, Ubuntu 15.10

Comment 11

[George Hyman]

Well obviously the "workaround" I posted in comment 4 is not general.  I ran into the problem again after I replaced my corporate mail exchange account via imap with one using Exquila (shameless plug - very good exchange email solution!).  So back to my question - any ideas for workarounds or any ideas when this will be fixed?

Comment 12

[George Hyman]

The other, somewhat obvious, workaround is to not have a common "sent" folder and use a specific one for each account.

Comment 13

[Kiwin]

In addition to my common Sent folder, the issue also almost "randomly" happens on other Local folders. It isn't every time (where i would be then become more vigilant to check every email sent).  Just often enough (once every 100~200 emails) so that i have been lulled into complacency.  Thank you for the suggested workaround, but did not work for me. Same aforementioned embarrassment of work related email from personal account ending up in recipients spam folder.  I am considering how to run two simultaneous instances of thunderbird with different profiles.
TB: 38.5.1 (but seen on several previous versions) (email folder probably has bits and pieces left around from upgrading over the years way back from Netscape Mail 1.0...)  OS: Win7

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Does this still reproduce for anyone?

Comment 15

[Anje]

Testing in version 102.10.1
Following same steps as entered in first comment.

Previous result
The default email address is auto inserted into FROM
the original Sent FROM is inserted into the TO field

Result in 102.10.1
Email sent by me using an email address which is NOT a default mail account to a company - copied to Local Folders Sent folder
click on 'Reply'
The 'FROM' is inserted into the 'FROM' field. It has not been replaced by the default email address.
The 'TO' field is inserted into the 'TO'

This all seems correct.
I'm not seeing the same problem.

Comment 16

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard and Comment 15