When doing a Reply or Reply All of a Sent email out of my account(default account), the non-default, lower(second) email account is used as the sent From: at the top of the New Message window. This only happens when the non-default, lower(second) email account is used in the original email in the To: or Cc:
Background:
I have two email accounts defined on Em Client on my machine, mine and my wife’s. My account is the default and is list first in the mail column. My wife account is listed second.
Em Client Version: 7.236908.0
Windows 10
The version of eMC you are using, “Em Client Version: 7.236908.0”, is not current.
Perhaps it would be best to upgrade to the current 7.x version or the 8.1 version, in case the problem you are reporting is resolved in a more current version.
Yes, that is correct. If eM Client has an email account or alias configured with the same email address to which the message was sent to or from, then the reply will be sent from that address regardless of which account’s folders it is in.
What’s the logic in that behavior? I send a message, then update the message and send it again (Reply All), and EmClient puts someone in the copy list as the sender. That is very confusing for those receiving the message and does not represent you actually sent the message.
The logic is that eM Client will always send the reply using the address to which it was sent, if that address is setup as an account or alias in the application.
So if you have both you and your wife’s email accounts setup in eM Client, if you click on a message sent to your wife and click reply, it will be sent from her address. Otherwise, for email sent to your address, clicking reply will use your email address.
Gary, I think we are miscommunicating here. I am talking about the “FROM” email address that is used when doing a Reply or Reply All.
When you Reply to an email, it puts your email as the FROM sender.
However if you have two accounts on your EmClient app, AND you copy the second account in the original sent email. EmClient will put the second accounts email address as the FROM, not your email address, who is doing the sending.
You need to work on your reading skills
I did not send the message to myself. I send a message to my family and copy my wife. Then Reply All to the message and EMClient sends it FROM my wife not from me.
Cheers
Well if you have you wife’s email account setup in eM Client as well, then essentially you are sending the message to yourself in as much as you are sending the message from eM Client on your computer, and then receiving it again into the same eM Client on that computer.
You also need to check which message you replied to. Was it the actually one you sent, or was it the one received at your wife’s email address?
eM’s “sent from” logic is definitely over-simplistic and leads to problems. My experience was similar but slightly different to the one above:
I have 2 email accounts configured one personal account and one business account - set as the default account. I sent an email from my personal account to an external email address, ensuring that I had selected my personal email address in the FROM field. I needed to add some additional information later so opened the email that I sent earlier, clicked reply all, added the additional information and sent it. However, I later discovered that eM had switched the FROM account back to my (default) business account.
I understand that eM looks in the TO line for the address of a local email account in order to determine which account to use in the FROM field, and where it doesn’t find one, uses the default account. However, this approach is over-simplistic and leads to unintended use of the default account. The logic needs to reflect the user’s most likely intentions.
There are actually 2 problems here. The second unexpected behaviour is that, having pressed Reply All, I expected both the sender’s email address (my personal account) and the original addressee (external email) to appear in the TO line. By definition of “reply”, when replying to an email, the list of addressees should ALWAYS include the address of the previous sender. However, eM decided to filter out my personal address from the TO line so that I am no longer responding to the previous sender. Ironically, had it not done so, eM would have found my personal email address in the TO line and correctly determined that I wanted to send the email from my personal account!
Outlook’s logic correctly determines the user’s most likely intentions, which, having used Outlook for many years before trying out eM, caught me out.
However, this approach is over-simplistic and leads to unintended use of the default account. The logic needs to reflect the user’s most likely intentions
How would eM Client know the users likely intentions ?.
It doesn’t have AI built-in to know which from name and address you want.
You need to select the correct from name and address above the To line before you send emails if its not the default address.
Outlook’s logic correctly determines the user’s most likely intentions, which, having used Outlook for many years before trying out eM, caught me out.
How does Outlook determine your intention automatically ?
I’ve used pretty much every version of Outlook
(apart from Outlook 365) and I allways have had to manually select the from name and sender if not the default address when sending any mail.
How would eM Client know the users likely intentions ?.
I not suggesting that the software should be psychic (although that would be cool and is probably coming!), just that algorithms should select the most likely case.
How does Outlook determine your intention automatically ?
I have 4 accounts configured on Outlook, I just tested replying to an email that I had sent from each account in turn and in every case Outlook selected the same account as the original email as the “from” account. It seems like common sense. It is much more likely that I would want to use the same account for a follow-up message than pre-selecting a completely different account that has never been part of the email conversation. Other email clients can do it, so it can’t be difficult.
This is my personal experience/preference, others may prefer it the way it is.
When replying to or forwarding an email I think the eM logic should be (in priority order):
Check who the original email was sent from, if it is one of the local accounts then pre-select this account as the FROM address;
Check who the original email was addressed to, if it is one of the local accounts then pre-select this account as the FROM address. If there are more than one address corresponding to a local account then pre-select the first one as the FROM address;
As for (2) but checking the CC line in the original email;
As for (2) but checking the BCC line in the original email;
If no locally configured accounts are addressed at all (e.g. in the case of an imported email or email sent as an attachment to another email) then preselect the default account as the FROM address.
It would be interesting to hear other users’ experience and whether this logic works for them or if another logic is preferred. The most successful and appealing products are those that are the most intuitive and user-friendly to use.
That is already pretty much what happens, with a few changes:
You mean who it was sent to. eM Client already sends the reply using the address to which it was sent, if that address is setup as an account or alias in the application.
There is no BCC field in a received message. The email will be received into your Inbox without your email address, and any reply will be sent from that account. So that basically is the same as:
The message will be sent from the account whose Inbox it is in.
That means if you receive a BCC message on account A and reply to it, it will be sent from account A. But if you move that received message to the Inbox of account B and reply to it, it will be sent from account B. That only happens with BCC messages. All other messages were you are in the To or CC field, that is the account the reply will be sent from regardless of what account you move it to.
I do mean checking who the email was sent from as the first priority with who the email was sent to as the second priority. The scenario under discussion is what happens if I send person A an email and later send a follow-up email to person A by replying to the earlier email that I sent. By checking who the email was sent from and if it matches any local accounts as the first priority, it ensures that the follow-up email will also pre-select the same “send from” account. At present eM only appears to check who the email was sent to and if none of the addresses match a local account, preselects the default account, which is what caught me out.
I agree that checking the bcc field logic is probably not relevant. Even if some scenarios exist where the original sender’s email is (say) sent as an attachment to another email.
Interesting point about emails imported into a local account inbox preselecting the address of that account when replying. I have never tried that, but it is logical behaviour. In that case, the default address would presumably only apply where an email contains no addresses that match a local account and the email is not stored in one of the local account inboxes e.g. in local storage folders.
The main point here is to highlight the absence of the priority 1 logic in eM at present which can lead to inadvertently sending emails from the wrong (unintended) account.
The scenario under discussion is what happens if I send person A an email and later send a follow-up email to person A by replying to the earlier email that I sent
So when you say “you are replying to an email you sent earlier”, are you forwarding that sent email from the sent box as it’s unusual that you would reply to a sent email from the sent box ?
May I suggest you guys simply recreate this situation
Have two accounts on your EmClient
Send and email from your primary/default account to some email address and copy your 2nd account.
go into your sent mailbox, and do a reply all to the message you just sent. Why would you do this. I update an email monthly and send the same message (calendar) with some updates to the same group.
Note what email address is in the sent from. In my case it’s my wife’s email. People do a uni-reply back to the sender (who is now my wife) and I don’t see the message.
It does not make sense to me to have this new version of the message be sent from someone on the copy list.
I like Robins list above on how to select the from email address.
cheers.
When replying to a message, the original sender’s email address is irrelevant in choosing which of your accounts will be used to send the reply. There is absolutely no connection at all.
So as I said, the logic is that eM Client will always send the reply using the address to which it was sent, if that address is setup as an account or alias in the application.
I agree that this is the current eM logic and this is precisely the reason why eM does not behave logically when sending a follow-up email to an email already sent. I understand eM’s current behaviour and also understand, through unfortunate experience that it can lead to miscommunication, hence why this post is discussing how, in my (and least one other user’s) opinion, it could be improved to resolve this.
eM takes no notice of the original sender and sends from the default account even though the clue as to the user’s most likely intended send from address is right there. Outlook (at least) does not behave this way and does check the original sender’s address to logically determine that the user most likely wants to send from the same address he sent from in the previous message. Why would he suddenly want to switch to the default email account to send a follow-up message already sent from a non-default account? It is possible of course, but the much more likely scenario is that he would want to send from the same account, hence why eM should check and pre-select the account that he sent from in the previous message in the thread to avoid miscommunication. If eM’s current logic never led to miscommunication, this post would not exist.
Because the sender’s address has nothing to do with it. If you receive a message on account A and you reply to it, it will be sent from account A. Who sent you the message is irrelevant.
So as I said, the logic is that eM Client will always send the reply using the address to which it was sent, if that address is setup as an account or alias in the application. If you import a message that was not sent to you, or you are a BCC recipient of that message, whatever account folder you have placed the message in will be used to send the reply.
Again, the sender of the message you are replying to has zero connection with what account you send the reply on.
