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How can I copy the addressees of a sent mail into a fresh mail that I'm composing, with some addressees deleted?

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by jazzebel2

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I want to be able to select the addressees of a new mail from those of a sent mail. I want to be able to copy some of the addressees from those of the previous mail, but not all. Is there a simple way of copying all the old addressees in one operation and then selecting some addressees for deletion in one operation?

I want to be able to select the addressees of a new mail from those of a sent mail. I want to be able to copy some of the addressees from those of the previous mail, but not all. Is there a simple way of copying all the old addressees in one operation and then selecting some addressees for deletion in one operation?

Chosen solution

jazzebel2 said

My original question remains: how do I remove some of the addressees in a single operation? Is there any way of deselecting say, five addressees out of 20 without going to each one of them manually and removing it , one at a time?

Truly, I have been dealing with the situation as what you described. I don't think it's possible with current TB. Maybe you could file a feature request on Bugzilla. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

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All Replies (8)

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Select from the old mail's context menu - edit as new message

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Please note that I also said "and then selecting some addressees for deletion in one operation". I had already seen and used "edit as new message", which solves the problem of reselecting the old addressees very well. Incidentally, I discovered (by accident) that if you click on "reply" for a sent message, it actually goes as a message from you to the same old addressees! However, it adds a bit of text at the beginning referring to the fact that you sent the previous message, mentioning date and time (and quotes the previous text), so if you don't want that to go you have to edit it out along with the the previous text and delete the attachments, exactly as you would have to do for "edit as new message".

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Please note reply reuses the refers to header so the mail you sent will contain references to the olds mail. So what you say, except those references can cause your mail to be handled differently by the recipient. I use threaded email, so such a mail will appear in Thunderbird appended to the bottom of the thread the original mail was in.

Just because your new mail has a new subject does not make it a new message. Edit as new does.

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What you say is true. I omitted to say that one also needs to edit the subject if one is using "reply". But one needs to do that even if one uses "edit as new". Please also note that in "reply" one doesn't need to remove the attachments, if any; in "edit as new" one has to do that. In "reply" one also has to edit out the reference in the text to the previous mail, as I mentioned earlier. My original question remains: how do I remove some of the addressees in a single operation? Is there any way of deselecting say, five addressees out of 20 without going to each one of them manually and removing it , one at a time?

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Chosen Solution

jazzebel2 said

My original question remains: how do I remove some of the addressees in a single operation? Is there any way of deselecting say, five addressees out of 20 without going to each one of them manually and removing it , one at a time?

Truly, I have been dealing with the situation as what you described. I don't think it's possible with current TB. Maybe you could file a feature request on Bugzilla. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

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Thanks for your last reply. It answers my question, to the extent that it says that what I want to do is not possible with current TB. It means I have to deselect each unwanted addressee individually. That's all I wanted to know. Thanks again

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jazzebel2 said

Thanks for your last reply. It answers my question, to the extent that it says that what I want to do is not possible with current TB. It means I have to deselect each unwanted addressee individually. That's all I wanted to know. Thanks again

You are welcome. Anyway that's just my opinion as an experienced user, but there may exist other solutions such as some extensions. Another place you may get more peer help is mozilla's discussion group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.support.thunderbird It's best used by subscribing it in Thunderbird, in case you are interested.

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Thank you once again for the suggestions. It doesn't matter so much. I can deselect individually, and I am satisfied with your opinion which, I can see, represents the experience of an expert user. In case you file a feature request -- I am not asking you to do so -- on Bugzilla or get an answer from the discussion group, I would appreciate it if you sent me the solution; otherwise I am content to do as I do now. Regards.