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Start as new mail/thread, when replying to an email in a thread?

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by sdaau

sdaau
sdaau
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Usually, I have my messages displayed in a threaded view.

Officially, I should start a new email by hitting "Write", and then selecting an email address from the address book - however, many times, it is very much easier to select an email in a thread, and hit Reply to start a new mail to the respective recipient, especially if it is a group of recipients.

However, if I reply to a message from a thread, that means my email will also inherit the Message-Id:, In-Reply-To:, and References: headers, which are used for threading - and when the recipients eventually reply to me, they return back similar headers, and so their responses end in the old thread, even if I intended to start a new thread and thus chose a new email title.

Is there a facility or addon for Thunderbird, so that if I reply to a message from a thread, I could click a button like "Start as new thread", in which case the old In-Reply-To: and References: headers will be deleted, and in that sense, a new thread will be started?

Usually, I have my messages displayed in a threaded view. Officially, I should start a new email by hitting "Write", and then selecting an email address from the address book - however, many times, it is very much easier to select an email in a thread, and hit Reply to start a new mail to the respective recipient, especially if it is a group of recipients. However, if I reply to a message from a thread, that means my email will also inherit the Message-Id:, In-Reply-To:, and References: headers, which are used for threading - and when the recipients eventually reply to me, they return back similar headers, and so their responses end in the old thread, even if I intended to start a new thread and thus chose a new email title. Is there a facility or addon for Thunderbird, so that if I reply to a message from a thread, I could click a button like "Start as new thread", in which case the old In-Reply-To: and References: headers will be deleted, and in that sense, a new thread will be started?

All Replies (2)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Right-click the message - Edit As New Message I'm not sure if that resets the Message ID though. Give it a try.

sdaau
sdaau Question owner
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Thanks for that, @christ1 - good idea, unfortunately that doesn't work; one problem is that you cannot really see headers in Thunderbird when writing a message (when you're reading, at least you have Ctrl-U for view message source), and I even installed the Header Tools Lite addon to help with this - but neither that addon offers any facilities to inspect or edit headers in a Write Email window. Another problem is that when you do "Edit as New", the original contents don't get quoted the way they do when you hit Reply, but that is a minor issue (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-Shift-O solves it).

So I tried one mail in a thread with "Edit as New", changed the title, sent it to myself - and while other headers may have been cleaned, the `References:` header is still there, containing IDs of every previous message in the conversation - which means, even if this reply has a distinct enough title, it still gets threaded with the old thread, which is what I wanted to avoid.

So, this question is still open - any other suggestions?

As a sub-question, any add-ons out there that will let you see/edit headers of a Write Email window?

EDIT: Related:

Modified by sdaau