Open Bug 272977 Opened 20 years ago Updated 2 years ago

RFE: Would like "metoo" option for Reply All

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Message Compose Window
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
UNCONFIRMED

People

(Reporter: bugzilla, Unassigned)

References

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041007 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041007 Firefox/0.10.1

When using the Reply All function, the person replying is not listed among the
recipients even when they were on the original To: or CC: line. There are times
when it is important for the sender to keep a copy of a sent email, and it isn't
always easy to remember to add yourself to the CC. Implicitly "Reply All" means
*all* the original recipients, inclding the person replying. I would like the
option to change this. The alternative, configuring Thunderbird to store all
sent mail in a Sent folder is overkill.

Other mailers have a "set metoo" configuration to toggle this functionality.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.User A sends mail to users B, C and D
2.User B reads the mail, and selectes "Reply All"
3.Only users A, C and D are shown as recipients.
This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
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Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

It is still an irritation, but since no-one has evaluated or made any other
comment there isn't much I can do but confirm that I would still like this
feature, which is present on most other mailers that I have used, and seems
fairly straightforward.  Could it be done via an extension?  Send me a pointer
about how & I'll do it myself.
dupe of bug 303293 ?
No, definitely not a dupe of <a
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=303293">303293</a>. It is the
exact opposite of that bug. 303293 requests that Reply All NOT include the
person replying, I am asking for it to be possible that it DOES include the
person sending the reply.

If I am on the original To: or CC: line, and I reply to "All", then I am part of
"All" and should be included.

Given the difference of opinion, it seems that a 'metoo' option should be
provided to configure this, as is done in other mailers.
I also wish this was configurable behavior.  When I was searching the web to find the appropriate configuration, I came across yet another person complaining about the existing behavior (near the end, starting with "Thunderbird and Mozilla have an annoying (to me) behavior with respect to their ``reply all'' features"):  

http://www.kitchenlab.org/www/bmah/Notes/thunderbird.html
I'm very much in favour of adding this behaviour into Thunderbird. I use Thunderbird every day at work and it's a big irritation not to have it. When you're sending large numbers of emails every day it's pretty painful to have to manually add yourself to the CC list every time you send a reply.

I have been using Mutt for years and simply having 'set metoo' is invaluable. There's always more work than you think in adding these things but I really would have thought it was reasonably quick to add a checkbox in either 'Composition->General', 'Composition->Addressing' or 'Advanced->General' in preferences.

Could someone from the dev team please update with their thoughts on adding this into 1.5.0.[34] as a minor RFE, or at least the next incremental release?

Cheers,

Greg

we don't do RFE's in security releases, which is what the .0x releases are.

You can always set up TB to bcc yourself on all e-mails, of course, but you're particularly asking to just cc yourself on all "reply all"s, not new e-mails, or simple reply, right?
> You can always set up TB to bcc yourself on all e-mails, of course, but you're
> particularly asking to just cc yourself on all "reply all"s, not new e-mails,
> or simple reply, right?
Yes. I send way too many emails to have them all stored in a Sent folder, or to be BCCed on them all. When there is discussion on an issue among several people, and I do "reply all" to contribute, I would like a way to be considered as part of "all" (since I was part of "all" as far as the sender was concerned) and to receive the reply as well, for tracking/historical purposes.
(In reply to comment #7)
> we don't do RFE's in security releases, which is what the .0x releases are.

Understood. That's fair enough.

> You can always set up TB to bcc yourself on all e-mails, of course, but you're
> particularly asking to just cc yourself on all "reply all"s, not new e-mails,
> or simple reply, right?

Yes, but as an option rather than a change to default behavior as it may not be to everyone's taste. The idea, from my perspective at least, is to model Mutt's behaviour in this respect.

If this could make it into the next maintenance release it would be very much appreciated.

Cheers,

Greg
QA Contact: message-compose
I'm glad to hear others are requesting this feature.  This is something I have been requesting for some time on the Request forums.  It looks like it has been approximately a year since this was last discussed, so I would like to bring this up again.  As of Seamonkey 1.1.1, I have not seen this added as a feature, but I would really like Mozilla to add this feature.  

Like in the previous comments, I also send and receive a lot of emails, and use email treads for issue tracking and resolution at my company.  Since the Thread Sort feature is so nice, it's a shame you cannot view your own comments inline with the responses of the other participants in the same thread.  When tracing the history of an issue, I'm forced to hope back and forth between my Inbox and Sent folder which is really bothersome and inefficient.  Using the Bcc: option on all outgoing emails is also inefficient because I really only want to be copied when I "Reply All", not for every message I send out.  If I really wanted that, I could just copy my entire Sent folder to my Inbox, but that is not a efficient use of disk space and makes the purpose of the Sent folder useless.

I know Eudora has a select box in it's options to allow this.  I believe Outlook does this by default.  I think an click-able option box in the Preferences Tab would be most acceptable, but I would even accept a config string in the "about: config" that I can set to "true" to "CC: me too" or "false" to follow default behavior and not copy.

Thanks for Listening.
Now, it seems to be always metoo (Thunderbird 2.0.0.9). I often respond messages with a reply-all with a heavy attachment. I frequently just forget to delete myself from the recipients list. I cannot find a way (in the configuration options) to leave myself out. The bug history does not give me any information about the decisions that have been made and why.

Please make "REPLY-ALL" configurable, giving the choice between "always", "never", "ask" or so. Maybe reflect that in the icon used for the button.
It doesn't do this by default - if you get it you are probably not using the address it was sent to. 

But, isn't the "always BCC this address" option what this bug wants?
This is a really important feature to me and, without this feature, it would prevent users from migrating to Thunderbird.

Simply, when using the "metoo" feature (which should *definitely* be included in TB as soon as possible), it is clear to all the *recipients* that the sender received a copy of the E-mail.  For example, when my E-mail address is only in the From: line and *not* on the To: line, people (including attorneys and courts) believe that I did not actually receive a copy of the message.  In other words, "always BCC this address" is *no* good (see comment #12 above).  Why should I have to add myself on every outgoing message (Eudora handles this fine).

Furthermore, I need for E-mail that I send to *me* (as a recipient) to go through the same kind of path/processing (spam, filtering, SMTP, etc.) that E-mail from *other* users would go through.

I'm a technical user that has been using E-mail for 30 years.  No other technical users worry about consistency and reliability of E-mail paths/processing?  Certainly someone else must care about reliable E-mail processing and delivery, right?

Please implement the "metoo" feature As Soon As Possible because when Reply All promises that it sends to all recipients <-- this is a false statement ... currently, it *doesn't* send to all recipients (I, the sender, am one of the recipients who doesn't receive the Reply All).

I recognize that not everyone wants this feature, but at least make it a configurable option.

I don't understand that reasoning..? Why would anyone think you need a copy of your own message - you wrote it yourself! If an attorney can't put that much together...

If you use bcc it goes through exactly the same processing as other messages.
Assignee: mscott → nobody
You say "if an attorney can't put that much together ...".  Well, if the attorney is *your* attorney then he/she can understand.  However, if it is the *opposing* attorney, they look for all inconsistencies in what one does ... all to discredit you.  Using "blind copies" is not obvious and not visible to the mailing sending/receiving process, so the whole issue gets side-tracked and one's reputation/credibility is discredited.

You need it on the To: line so that other people can see that you, too, have received a copy.  A simple, visible, obvious approach, such as "metoo" would include myself in the To: line in Reply All would eliminate the (legal) discussion of when I choose to use "blind copies" and what criteria I use for sending things "blind".

While Bcc: might work to get me a copy through the same processing mechanism, it doesn't put me on the To: line.  In other words, To: makes all the recipients visible (something the Bcc: does not do).

Also, when people Reply All to my message, I want to be sure that I receive a copy of *their response to my message*, so I want *their* mailer to send me a copy with my E-mail address on the To: line.  If I use Bcc:, there is no assurance that their Reply All will include me because I'm not on the To: or Cc: lines, i.e., I'm not a recipient of the message.

So with Bcc:, I'll be missing responses from people replying to me message (yes, this happens with some mailers).

What's so horrible about adding the "metoo" configurable feature for putting myself on the To: line?  ... something that has been in other mailers for a long while.

Reaction on #12: You were right. Some send their mail to my personal address
and to my business address, and of course Firefox does not know that my
business mail (which is automatically forwarded to my personal mail) is also
"me".

Would be nice to be able to tell Firefox that "me" also contains one or more
other addresses. But that strictly is another matter than this "metoo" problem.
p. van de Poll: add the other address as an identity.

Frank Farance: I still don't see any of your points. Nobody can argue you didn't receive a copy - you wrote it, why would you want/need a copy? And AFAIK all mailers add From to a Reply-All so there is no risk of missing out on any mails.
I'm the original requestor for this functionality.

In terms of Frank Farance's point, there is a huge difference betweeen GETTING a copy, and BEING SEEN TO GET a copy of a mail.  In his case it is a legal one. Say his client sends a mail, and is BCCed. The opposing attorney prints off the copy of the mail and submits it to court saying "I see no proof that Mr Farance's client received a copy of this message". Legal cases can and do hinge on whether (and when) a message was received by someone.  In my case it is for internal traceability. If I am dealing with a discussion from customers or colleagues, and I reply to clarify a point, I want a copy of my own reply as part of the thread so I can file it with the thread for later reference.  But, since I deal with hundreds of mails a day, I don't necessarily want every trivial mail I send to be filed in a Sent or Bcc folder where I have to manually sort and cleanup every day. Just those mails where it is important to Reply to All, and in such cases I am part of All.

When Magnus Melin writes "AFAIK all mailers add From to a Reply-All" I think you're missing the point. If A sends mail to B and C, and B does a Reply All from Thunderbird, only A and C will get that reply. B will not. The reply did not therefore go to "All" involved in the discussion, it went to "All except B". The issue isn't "From:" it is "To:"

All I (and others) have asked for is that somewhere in the Thunderbird configuration options is a switch that says "When I do Reply All, add me to the To: line along with everyone else".  Make it optional, make the default to not do this, fine. Just, please, add the option, so that Thunderbird works like other mailers.
Frank Farance, I'd Like to see if I can explain why someone would want this feature.  Speaking for myself, I primarily desire this feature for tracking the history on large group email discussions.  When you are involved in a email discussion involving a large reciptatent list, it makes it easier to track the discussion when you can sort your comments in the correct sequence/branch with everyone else's comments.

Yes, when you "Replay All", you do get a copy placed in your "Sent" folder, but everyone else's response are in your "Inbox".  So, when I am trying to re-fresh on the message history, I will use Mozilla's 'sort by thread' feature to align all the messages in a message-reply-message thread tree.  I love Mozilla's ability to sort by thread, but the hassle for me is that I can see everyone's comments in the tree branches, except my own because they are only in the "Sent" folder.  So, I have to leave the tree, search my "Sent" folder for my responses, and then try to return to the same spot on the tree back in my "Inbox".  This back and forth wastes time.  If I can have the option of sending a copy to my "Inbox" and to the "Sent" box, I can see my responses in sequence with the others, and re-read the discussion history without having to re-map the path of the discussion over multiple mail folders.

Now there have been previous comments for a few solutions available in Mozilla today that provide some limited substitutions for this feature, but they are very very un-satisfactory.  Let me detail why I don't like some of the previous options mentioned.

Option #1: "BCC yourself on every email."
This option sucks because it doesn't make sense to copy yourself on every email you send.  Then your "Sent" box becomes redundant.  You would end up wasting a lot of disk space by keeping double copies of 'every' email you send.  You would just want this feature for "Reply All" situations.

Option #2: "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to".
I thought this would solve the issue when it was introduced back in 1.1.x, but this is also un-satisfactory as well because instead of placing a copy in the "Sent" and "Inbox", it places the 'only' copy in the "Inbox".  I, like many people, use my "Sent" folder as a historical archive of what messages I have sent out and to who I've sent them.  This feature would cause some of that historical data to be missing from the "Sent" folder, even though I had sent messages out.

Option #3: "Just add yourself as a cc: everytime you ReplyAll"
Well, I have had this comment before and it defeats the whole purpose of the request.  If I was good enough to remember to add myself each time, I wouldn't really have a need for the feature.  Besides, I really want to focus on the content of the email messages, and not checking the To:/From: list everytime I add my comments to the discussion.

Ideally, I would like one additional check box in the Copies and Folders preference screen.  Where is says "When Sending Messages: Place a copy in:", where most of us have our "Sent" folder selected, I'd like one more radio button that says: "For ReplayAll: also place a copy in the Inbox". 
 
Hopefully, that explains the request for the feature.

Antman.
(In reply to comment #18)
> you're missing the point. If A sends mail to B and C, and B does a Reply All
> from Thunderbird, only A and C will get that reply. B will not. The reply did
> not therefore go to "All" involved in the discussion, it went to "All except
> B". The issue isn't "From:" it is "To:"

I assumed you are A here, you don't have any control over B. (And as A, you get the reply.)



Who "I" am here is irrelevant. Please read what I wrote.

1) A sends a message to B and C.
2) B does a "Reply All".
3) B DOES NOT GET A COPY OF THE REPLY.

B was one of "All recipients" of the original message, yet is not considered as part of "All recipients" for the reply. That is inconsistent and irritating.
But B *can* get the reply now - using the available BCC option. It's his choice!
(In reply to comment #22)
> But B *can* get the reply now - using the available BCC option. It's his
> choice!
> 

Using BCC is not good because you get a carbon copy of EVERY email you send, not just the ReplyAll copies that you want to get.  Having to manually remove yourself selectively from every BCC you didn't want is just as bad as having to manually add yourself to every ReplayAll that you do want.  What I believe everyone is requesting is an option to get a complimentary 2nd copy (in addition to the one that goes to your Sent folder) to be filed along with the email thread in your Inbox.  For those who like it the way it is, they don't have to use the option.  For those who would like the option, like myself, we get the flexibility we would like.
FWIW, we nowadays also have an auto-cc option, in addition to the auto-bcc option. 

Should be simple to implement a metoo feature to preserve "me" in To or Cc fields, but i don't really see the value in it. http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/annotate/6f71fa7c2970/mailnews/compose/src/nsMsgCompose.cpp#l2770
Blocks: 398187
OS: Windows XP → All
Hardware: x86 → All
I am currently using Ver. 24.3.0 on Fedora 15. "Reply to All" doesn't seem to obey to "When sending messages, automatically" setting in the following scenario:

1) A sends a message to B.
2) A gets a copy due "When sending messages, automatically" setting of 'Bcc:' to sender.
3) A does "Reply to All" on the received message (due to 'Bcc' setting.)
4) A is not included in the Bcc list

In previous versions 'Bcc' or 'Cc' settings use to be automatically included as per the settings.
Severity: normal → S3
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