REPLY uses default identity, not the address the email was sent to
I have a catchall account. Many email addresses come into that account, too many to have separate identities created -- literally hundreds of email addresses so I can track who is using the email address I provided.
tim-company1@domain.com tim-company2@domain.com ... tim-companyXYZ@domain.com
My mail server sends all of these to tim-catchall@domain.com.
The issue happens when I receive a message addressed to tim-company1@domain.com and want to reply.
When I reply to Company1, Thunderbird replaces tim-company1@domain.com with tim-catchall@domain.com. If I am not diligent and replace the reply address with the correct email, Company1 receives a reply with the wrong correspondent and gets confused.
This leads to management problems where I accidentally send a message from tim-catchall@domain.com and that confuses the conversation.
Creating an identity for each of these near randomly created email addresses is not an option. Though that is how Thunderbird would like users to handle this situation.
How do I set Thunderbird to use the message recipient To: field rather than replacing with random identities that aren't in the conversation?
Here's a typical header ... I want my replies to use the literal "To:" field, not the "Delivered to:" field.
=
Return-Path: <customerservice=darwin.com.salesforce.com> Delivered-To: tim-catchall@174XX0X.XX82XX7 for <tim-darwin@domain.com>; Mon, 6 Jun 2022 14:19:51 -0400 Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2022 18:19:51 +0000 (GMT) From: Customer Service Email <customerservice@darwin.com> Sender: noreply@salesforce.com To: "tim-darwin@domain.com" <tim-darwin@domain.com>
Wšě wotmołwy (5)
Allowing that would create an integrity issue, allowing to send messages when no email account existed within TB. That is why the Identities feature was provided. That could quickly cause internet sites to view email from Thunderbird suspiciously, as the sending email may be bogus.
Hi David,
I think you missed my point these accounts are all real, and end up in a real inbox. They are virtualized, but just as valid as a virtual mail server running on some cluster somewhere.
Once upon a time this reply using the incoming address worked as expected. It's bugged me that the feature went away - but only now took the time to bring it up.
I'll add that I send emails without associated identities all the time. According to your statement, Thunderbird is intentionally making that more difficult, and that seems, well, pathetic.
In summation: I receive an email -- that is proof the email account exists, even if virtual. Having Thunderbird reply using that incoming address is no less valid.
Oh - and using CATCH-ALL accounts is standard business practice. Something I'd expect Thunderbird to support.
https://help.liquidweb.com/s/article/Setting-Up-a-Catch-All-Email-Address-in-Premium-Business-Email https://www.corporatecomm.com/faqs/other-questions/what-is-a-catch-all-account https://www.website.com/beginnerguide/email/9/4/catch-all-alias.ws
Okay, maybe I'm just not up to speed on that. My experience has been the use of Identities to address that. If the feature is available in other email clients, it just shows that I'm not aware.
To be clear, all of these virtual mailboxes are in the same domain - so nothing untoward is spoofing anyone or anything except the identity I use for security purposes and external account tracking. If the company I give tim-uniquecompany@domain.com gets hacked or sells my info and I see spam coming into that unique address, I let them know then point future email to that address into the nul void via a spam filter.
My use is somewhat unique, but shouldn't be. If everyone had this capability (owned their own domain mail servers and assigned a unique email address to everyone they did business with) email spam wouldn't exist today.