http://kb.mozillazine.org/Figuring_out_whether_the_recipient_read_your_message

christ1, thank you for the response. This post is helpful, however, not exactly what I'm after. I'm more interested in seeing a list of who I have sent messages to, but haven't received a response from yet. Hopefully that is clear.

I think the first approach needs change. If you use the mail merge add-on to send the emails, then you will have one email per supplier to follow up. It will also look professional as the emails will the addressed to the person who gets them. Not you.

Once you have individual emails followup becomes easier as you can use tags or even right click the mails and convert them to tasks for followup in the task list. Not ideal as it will use the email text in the task by default. But probably better than what you have now.

I tried mail merge and I really like it. I'm able to send many emails to different recipients. The problem I have is actually determining if a recipient has responded to an email. If an email is sent to 10 different recipients, can I batch them together on a "list" of some sort that I know will need to be followed up on?

When I send a RFQ out, it may have 5-10 recipients on it, and I may send 5-25 RFQs per day. Managing who has and has not responding is becoming quite the task.

My approach.

Include a "standardized statement in your RFQ email subject, like start the subject with RFQ or RFQ: Create a filter that acts on sending that eithes moved or copies emails with a RFQ in the subject to the inbox.

Next set the inbox to threaded view. There is method in the madness of using the inbox here. If you place mail into another folder say sentRFQ, your vendors may not reply with the original subject. So a filter will struggle to catch ALL of the replies. However most will click reply and even if they change the subject completely the reference header will remain. So a threaded inbox will automatically marry the reply into a conversation thread.

Then you add an icon to the toolbar. (right click the toolbar, select customize and drag the view icon onto the toolbar.

Once you have the icon click it and it will list some standard views, click customize on the bottom of that list and then the add button. In the criteria set the filter to subject contains RFQ:

give it a name. Now selecting that "View" will limit the inbox contents displayed to only those RFQ emails and the ones without a reply will not be in a thread. (clicking another folder and back to inbox clears the "view"

Conversely. You could create a find (ctrl+Shift+F) using the same criteria use in the "view" and save the results as a "virtual folder" that will give the same modified inbox view as using the view icon.

The only complaint is if you have an abhorrence to having your mail automatically threaded by Thunderbird. Personally I use it for all inbox mail and have my replies saved to the folder I am replying from so my reply appears in the thread along with the mail I replied to.

Thank you for Matt for the advice. I will dig through this and try to make it work. I'll follow up with you if I have any questions.

Thanks Again,

Tarik

I thread my sent and incoming mail in the same folder (Inbox). If you use mail.strict_threading=true then it will thread on References, not just subject.

As messages get replies you will see the number of messages in the thread increase (optional column) and have an underline. And messages that don't have a reply/new message will not have an underline.