Default Reply-To and Bcc in Mail (Moved)

Question

Default Reply-To and Bcc in Mail (Moved)

This is a repost of a question I mistakenly posted on the Leopard thread.

I just finished transferring all my archived mail from several years from Netscape Mail 7.2 to OS X Mail 2.1. There are 2 features which I used in Netscape Mail that I am unable to duplicate in OS X Mail:

1. bcc a specific address other than myself
2. provide a reply-to address different than the ISP addressed used to send the mail

On the 10.5 thread, Pascal Bouvier provided an excellent suggestion, referencing the following site which had 2 potential solutions to this problem:

http://www.hawkwings.net/2007/01/28/adding-a-default-reply-to-address-in-mailapp /

The first suggestion involves an applescript created by Mail Team Developer Cricket which allows specification of a Bcc other than "myself" and a Reply-To address to every email by default. However, the link to this applescript - http://homepage.mac.com/cricket/Menu19.html - results in an error. Apparently, the page has been removed.

The second suggestion involves a post on macosxhints - http://www.macosxhints.com/comment.php?mode=view&cid=11055 - using Terminal commands to achieve the same objective. I carefully used the following Terminal command to specify the desired defaults addresses:

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Reply-To" = " mydefaultreplytoaddress"; "Bcc" = " mydefaultbccaddress"; }'

and verified that they had been successfully entered using:

defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders

However, using these Terminal commands has had no effect on my outgoing mail Bcc and Reply-To addresses, even after restarting Mail, restarting OS X, etc.

Does anyone know where the Cricket script can now be found?

Alternatively, any suggestions as to why the Terminal commands are not working?

Thanks greatly for any ideas.
Bob

 PowerBook G4,  MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.11),  iPhone 8GB,  iPod Mini

Posted on Dec 5, 2007 1:59 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 5, 2007 2:22 AM in response to Robert Powers1

Can't help with question 1 - I use QuicKeys to do this - but for question 2 just enter the address you want in the 'Email Address' field in Mail Preferences>Accounts>Account Information.

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Answer 2

Dec 5, 2007 2:47 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

This doesn't work, at least with a .Mac account. I click away from the Accounts panel and am prompted to save my changes; I click Save, then when I click back on the Accounts panel my email address has reverted back to my mac.com address.

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Answer 3

Dec 5, 2007 2:59 AM in response to Robert Powers1

Using the terminal command seems to work for me. Even though the reply-to field in my outgoing messages is empty, it does actually get set to what I set on the command line when I send the email.

Unfortunately it also seems you can't override what you've set on the command line by typing a different value in the compose window. I suppose this isn't a big deal since you probably don't want to set different reply-to's very often.

But really this should just be an option to set in Mail prefs!

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Answer 4

Dec 5, 2007 3:12 AM in response to Vlad Beffa1

.Mac mail doesn't allow you to set a return address different from the real one: this is a security measure because you are not directly connected to them. Your usual ISP's mail doesn't usually make this provision because they know it's you that's connected: here the altered return address should work. I don't think there's any way of doing it with .Mac.

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Answer 5

Dec 5, 2007 3:56 AM in response to Vlad Beffa1

Hi, Vlad,

Thanks for the observation. I just assumed that when the Reply-To and Bcc fields in the outgoing message were blank that the Terminal commands had not worked. In fact, both addresses have taken effect even the fields are blank.

That works well enough for my situation.

Bob

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Answer 6

JWDS

Level 1

0 points

Dec 9, 2007 8:31 AM in response to Robert Powers1

Hi, Robert.

One possible solution is stationery. When you save custom stationery, the visible headers and anything entered into them are saved with that stationery.

e.g. Set up a new email with the Bcc: and Reply-To: fields visible and enter the appropriate addresses into those fields, then select Save as Stationery from the File menu.

To send an email using this stationery, in the New Message window you need to click Show Stationery and then click on your custom stationery. You can drag your custom stationery into the Favorites category if you like.

Not a perfect solution, but quicker than entering Bcc: and Reply-To: addresses each time, and certainly more flexible than the sledgehammer UserHeaders approach.

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Answer 7

JWDS

Level 1

0 points

Dec 9, 2007 8:51 AM in response to JWDS

Sorry, just realised this is a Tiger question and stationery is a Leopard feature. (Blush)

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Answer 8

perspixe

Level 1

13 points

Feb 17, 2008 3:26 AM in response to JWDS

You have a good point here JWDS2. This thread was moved from Leopard to Tiger even if the hint works with both. Your post is nevertheless useful. I guess some threads like this should be available in both Tiger and Leopard Forums.
On your hint, Is there a way that every new message or reply is automatically set up with this custom stationnary?

Message was edited by: perspixe

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