Need AppleScript to Reply to Email Message

Hi,

The following script should do what you are asking for:

set myReply to "Approve"

tell application "Mail"

set theSelection to selection

if theSelection is {} then return

activate

repeat with thisMessage in theSelection

set theOutgoingMessage to replythisMessage with opening window

repeat until exists (window 1 whose name = "Re: " & subject of thisMessage)

end repeat

delay 0.1

tell application "System Events"

keystroke "a" using {command down} -- ⌘A to select all

keystrokemyReply

end tell

sendtheOutgoingMessage

end repeat

end tell

Message was edited by: Pierre L. (removed “tell process "Mail"”)

My pleasure.

I'm unable to reproduce that issue on my MacBook Pro under OS X 10.8.2. Try replacing “delay 0.1” with “delay 1” to begin with. If it doesn't work, open the Event Log History window to see if you couldn't find out some useful information as why the script doesn't work as expected.

Message was edited by: Pierre L. (try replacing “delay 0.1”, not “delay 0.25”)

Just after I sent my last post, I too got the issue. I'm now trying to find a fix. Sorry for that.

Unfortunately, the issue seems to occur intermittently and isn't reproducible at will. For now, the script seems to be working flawlessly again on my computer. However, the issue, when it occurred, most likely had something to do with the “repeat until exists…” loop.

I'm suspicious of the way you're nesting application tells. Try rewriting it this way:

set myReply to "Approve"

tell application "Mail"

set theSelection to selection

if theSelection is {} then return

activate

repeat with thisMessage in theSelection

set theOutgoingMessage to replythisMessage with opening window

repeat until exists (window 1 whose name = "Re: " & subject of thisMessage)

end repeat

delay 0.1

-- send gui scripting to handler to get it out of Mail tell block

my guiScriptMail(myReply)

sendtheOutgoingMessage

end repeat

end tell

on guiScriptMail(myReply)

tell application "System Events"

tell process "Mail"

set frontmost to true

keystroke "a" using {command down} -- ⌘A to select all

keystrokemyReply

end tell

end tell

end guiScriptMail

Michael Hyatt1 wrote:

If you find an answer, please let me know. I am hoping it is not a bug with Mountain Lion.

Maybe you might want to try this alternative solution:

set myReply to "Approve"

tell application "Mail"

set theSelection to selection

if theSelection is {} then return

activate

repeat with thisMessage in theSelection

set theOutgoingMessage to replythisMessage with opening window

delay 1 -- adjust if necessary

if name of window 1 is not "Re: " & subject of thisMessage then

display dialog "There seems to be an issue with the current message." buttons {"Cancel", "Continue"} default button 2 with icon 2

else

tell application "System Events"

keystroke "a" using {command down} -- ⌘A to select all

keystrokemyReply

delay 0.25 -- enough time to keystroke

end tell

sendtheOutgoingMessage

end if

end repeat

end tell

twtwtw wrote:

I'm suspicious of the way you're nesting application tells. Try rewriting it this way:

Thanks for your suggestion. However, since the original script seems to work flawlessly 99% of the time on my computer, I doubt it has anything do to with the way I'm nesting application tells. Maybe you go safer with a handler though.