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Prevent Thunderbird from stripping custom headers (e.g. X-Alias) on sending

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  • Last reply by jgram2025

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Hi everyone,

I'm working on a privacy-friendly email setup and ran into a challenge with Thunderbird.

My setup: I have a catch-all email address that forwards all incoming emails sent to *@mydomain.com to my real mailbox, secret@mydomain.com. This way, I can use aliases like alias1@mydomain.com, alias2@mydomain.com, etc., without exposing my actual address.

This part works perfectly.

The problem: When replying to a message sent to alias1@mydomain.com, Thunderbird automatically uses secret@mydomain.com as the sender address. That defeats the purpose — the recipient now sees my secret address, which I wanted to keep hidden.

Thunderbird offers a workaround via identities, but it requires creating a separate identity for every single alias, which becomes unmanageable if you use a lot of them.

My attempted solution: My idea was to have my mail server insert a header like:

X-Alias: alias1@mydomain.com

Then, on sending, the server could rewrite the From: header using that value — thus preserving the alias and protecting my actual address.

However, I discovered that Thunderbird strips custom headers like X-Alias when sending. That breaks the solution.

My questions: 1. Is there any way to configure Thunderbird to preserve specific custom headers like X-Alias during sending? 2. Alternatively, is there a better or recommended approach to achieving what I’m trying to do — replying from the alias address automatically, without exposing the real one, and without creating hundreds of identities?

I’d really appreciate any ideas, insights, or suggestions. Thank you!

Hi everyone, I'm working on a privacy-friendly email setup and ran into a challenge with Thunderbird. My setup: I have a catch-all email address that forwards all incoming emails sent to *@mydomain.com to my real mailbox, secret@mydomain.com. This way, I can use aliases like alias1@mydomain.com, alias2@mydomain.com, etc., without exposing my actual address. This part works perfectly. The problem: When replying to a message sent to alias1@mydomain.com, Thunderbird automatically uses secret@mydomain.com as the sender address. That defeats the purpose — the recipient now sees my secret address, which I wanted to keep hidden. Thunderbird offers a workaround via identities, but it requires creating a separate identity for every single alias, which becomes unmanageable if you use a lot of them. My attempted solution: My idea was to have my mail server insert a header like: X-Alias: alias1@mydomain.com Then, on sending, the server could rewrite the From: header using that value — thus preserving the alias and protecting my actual address. However, I discovered that Thunderbird strips custom headers like X-Alias when sending. That breaks the solution. My questions: 1. Is there any way to configure Thunderbird to preserve specific custom headers like X-Alias during sending? 2. Alternatively, is there a better or recommended approach to achieving what I’m trying to do — replying from the alias address automatically, without exposing the real one, and without creating hundreds of identities? I’d really appreciate any ideas, insights, or suggestions. Thank you!

Modified by fisoc70290

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Have you tried Firefox Relay Premium?

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