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trouble using GMail address "tricks" in Thunderbird

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  • Last reply by Matt

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I posted this to the Linux Mint forum as I use that distro and they rely on Thunderbird as the email client. corresponding Linux Mint forum article

My workstation is a Thinkpad X220tablet Convertible running Linux Mint 19.3. All Mint distro provided (19 Oct 2020) updates are applied. I have several email accounts at various servers active in my T'bird application. All accounts are accessed with IMAP.

The text from my forum posting follows below.

Thanks in advance, ~~~ 0;-Dan Covington, LA

====================

I'm playing with [u]Google™ email address tricks/u and think that I found a [b]bug/b with Thunderbird™. I cannot discover how to post it to a T'bird or Mozilla® page so I'm posting the details here. see [url="https://smallbusiness.chron.com/gmail-email-address-tricks-41619.html#:~:text=Although%20Gmail%20allows%20users%20to,recognize%20and%20deliver%20your%20email"]Google Tricks/url.

Using T'bird v68.10.0 (64-bit), I select Kirk's account and send a message to Scotty. Both are Gmail addresses. [code]

    FROM:  Kirk <kirk@gmail.com>
    TO:      "scotty+stuff@gmail.com"
    ...
    

/code I used the T'bird GUI but my example reads like a terminal session. I needed to quotation marks in the TO address so that T'bird would ignore the plus sign.

After a brief delay, I'm told that there is a new message for Scotty. I open that message and see: [code]

    FROM:  kirk@gmail.com
    TO:      scotty+stuff@gmail.com
    ...

/code This is exactly what I expected. I also look at Kirk's SentMail folder and see the same FROM and TO information.

On detailed inspection, Scotty's inbox shows the new message as: [code]

    Correspondent:  scotty+stuff@gmail.com

/code Huh? What?

Since Kirk sent the message, shouldn't his email or address book entry show as the Correspondent?

Looking at Kirk's other SentMessage data [list] [*] none are empty(blank) [*] all contain the TO email address or address book Contact Name /list

As a further test, I send a message using not-tricky email addressing: [code]

    FROM:  kirk@gmail.com
    TO:      scotty@gmail.com
    ...
    

/code Kirks SentMail folder shows a blank(empty) Correspondent field. Scotty Inbox also shows a blank(empty) Correspondent field. REPLY etc all direct messages correctly. Huh? What?

[b]DISCUSSION/b [i]What is going on with the Correspondent field contents. Is it something to do with the fact that both Kirk@gmail.com and Scotty@gmail.com are configured as accounts in the same T'bird session? Is something else going on?

Does the email trick "scotty+stuff@gmail.com" cause the message to be stored so that any REPLY comes back to Scotty -- because of the embedded plus-sign?

Clearly, the email trick is causing something to go haywire. Sadly, the what is going on is not clear beyond "it's not working" beyond message delivery.

I posted this to the Linux Mint forum as I use that distro and they rely on Thunderbird as the email client. [https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=333238 corresponding Linux Mint forum article] My workstation is a Thinkpad X220tablet Convertible running Linux Mint 19.3. All Mint distro provided (19 Oct 2020) updates are applied. I have several email accounts at various servers active in my T'bird application. All accounts are accessed with IMAP. The text from my forum posting follows below. Thanks in advance, ~~~ 0;-Dan Covington, LA ================================ ''I'm playing with [u]Google™ email address tricks[/u] and think that I found a [b]bug[/b] with Thunderbird™. I cannot discover how to post it to a T'bird or Mozilla® page so I'm posting the details here. see [url="https://smallbusiness.chron.com/gmail-email-address-tricks-41619.html#:~:text=Although%20Gmail%20allows%20users%20to,recognize%20and%20deliver%20your%20email"]Google Tricks[/url]. Using T'bird v68.10.0 (64-bit), I select Kirk's account and send a message to Scotty. Both are Gmail addresses. [code] FROM: Kirk <kirk@gmail.com> TO: "scotty+stuff@gmail.com" ... [/code] I used the T'bird GUI but my example reads like a terminal session. I needed to quotation marks in the TO address so that T'bird would ignore the plus sign. After a brief delay, I'm told that there is a new message for Scotty. I open that message and see: [code] FROM: kirk@gmail.com TO: scotty+stuff@gmail.com ... [/code] This is exactly what I expected. I also look at Kirk's SentMail folder and see the same FROM and TO information. On detailed inspection, Scotty's inbox shows the new message as: [code] Correspondent: scotty+stuff@gmail.com [/code] Huh? What? Since Kirk sent the message, shouldn't his email or address book entry show as the Correspondent? Looking at Kirk's other SentMessage data [list] [*] none are empty(blank) [*] all contain the TO email address or address book Contact Name [/list] As a further test, I send a message using not-tricky email addressing: [code] FROM: kirk@gmail.com TO: scotty@gmail.com ... [/code] Kirks SentMail folder shows a blank(empty) Correspondent field. Scotty Inbox also shows a blank(empty) Correspondent field. REPLY etc all direct messages correctly. Huh? What? [b]DISCUSSION[/b] [i]What is going on with the Correspondent field contents. Is it something to do with the fact that both Kirk@gmail.com and Scotty@gmail.com are configured as accounts in the same T'bird session? Is something else going on? Does the email trick "scotty+stuff@gmail.com" cause the message to be stored so that any REPLY comes back to Scotty -- because of the embedded plus-sign? Clearly, the email trick is causing something to go haywire. Sadly, the what is going on is not clear beyond "it's not working" beyond message delivery. ''

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how about you display the from and to addresses and then determine if your issue is with the implementation of the correspondent column, which is purely a Thunderbird construct. There is no correspondent header in an email.