How do I edit message text of a received email?

[vinces]

Surprisingly, on searching here, I couldn't find an answer to this fairly basic question. Did I miss it?

Often enough when I get an email I want to add a ph number or relevant link, or even just change the subject to something more useful, before filing it. In Outlook it is simple to edit emails. Is there a way with Aquamail Pro? Thank you.

[StR]

No.
But you can share a message with a note-taking or any type of organizer app. Use "copy/send/share/print" -> share  - from the message view.

I am surprised that someone wants to edit incoming messages. This is a mail app: for sending and receiving emails, not a business organizer.




 

[vinces]

The workaround I have been using is to forward the email to myself with a more useful topic and possibly a relevant ph number or link. I am a great believer in handling things once and my reality is it is really easy to put "extraneous" info on an email, while you have it to hand, from someone that obviously had an issue providing basic detail in their signature or etc. 2 weeks or 3 months later I want to find the info and do something, which is so much easier if the relevant stuff is together.

The thing is a tool. It should work for us not the other way round. Some really good people send pretty poor quality emails and it would be nice if making it easy to accommodate this was a std feature. Is it hard to do? Guess this now belongs in features requests. Is there a Mod that could kindly move it? Thank you.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Um.... Never heard about such thing as editing *incoming* messages.

Never seen it myself -- in Gmail / web, Gmail / Android, K9 Mail, Thunderbird, other web mail systems...

It's interesting to know that Outlook lets you do this, sounds like it's an important part of your way to get things organized. That's great.

But in view of the above (other mail apps / web mail systems), sorry I wouldn't call it "a basic feature".

Something an expert Outlook user such as yourself should be expected to expect, that I can agree with.

My apologies that AquaMail doesn't have every feature which exists in Outlook.

[StR]

Kostya, just for a historic reference: elm, which is a text-based Unix shell mail program  (or at least one of its later brunches) had a compilation option that allowed editing of the entire "raw" Inbox (and, I think any other folder).
Obviously, that was not a "standard feature", and was just a hack for people who knew well what they did (e.g. those who could speak SMTP and maybe even ESMTP).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_%28email_client%29

PS. One of the links linked from the still-existing elm webpage brought me here:
http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
Some things read today similarly to how a book of manners and style circa 1800-s would read today.

[vinces]

Well, just for the info, Outlook 2013's Move menu has Actions, with Edit Message (and Recall, Resend, View in browser, Encoding, Header & View Source) in the drop down list. It also has an Editing group with Translate, Select and Find. Weird that Edit isn't there too, but that's MS for ya!

I have been using the ability to edit email for as long as I can remember which is why I would make the "basic" crack. But I only recently got a Samsung Note 4 and found out, with a little patience and attention to detail, I can seriously operate off it. Thanks in no small part to Aquamail Pro, so thank you Kostya for getting the best way to do this "out there". It is no small thing to get the subtleties you have built in, and I soon figured out that, despite some commendable efforts of others, Aquamail pro is unique in having got it right.

Would it be a big deal to make emails editable? I thought it would be a simple thing to do from my, admittedly limited, understanding of the mechanisms involved.

Apart from the earlier stated use of email editing the other thing I sometimes do is correct important errors in earlier chain emails and highlight it and reference the change in later text. You don't want these kind of errors lying around for people to read without finding the later erratum as they can stuff things up a beauty. That can be done no worries with Aquamail. It is just the straight file it jobbie I would like to be able to influence. But I have a workaround, albeit cludgy, so no drama...

[mikeone]

Well, just for the info, Outlook 2013's Move menu has Actions, with Edit Message (and Recall, Resend, View in browser, Encoding, Header & View Source) in the drop down list. It also has an Editing group with Translate, Select and Find. Weird that Edit isn't there too, but that's MS for ya!
...

Just to clarify:
Are these accounts configured as IMAP or POP3 in Outlook 2013?
And you are speaking about Outlook's desktop client... not about their mobile app (Android, Windows phone, iOS), right?

[vinces]

They are pop3 with immediate removal from server using desktop client. I am using a combination with Aquamail but a bit puzzled by imap hanging on to lots of a yahoo mail account - typically spam.  This is still a work in progress for me to sort out the exact practicalities of various ways of working. Currently I rely on taking relevant .pst files with me and Android to stay abreast.

What you are alluding to is my basic reason for making this request may be flawed. I get that, but am yet to do the testing to see what can change and be retained and what cannot. Equally I think splitting emails to live and file groups could be smarter, which there are several ways to achieve. So changing my work procedures to access new possibilities of better tech. But my focus remains this is a tool and a certain amount of accommodation is fine but tried 'n true is the fallback position.

[StR]

IMHO, the functionality that Outpooki(sic!) implements does misservice to people who use it: Those who started with Outpook, develop some wrong assumptions and business habits that come back and bite them.
E.g. not only that message "recall" doesn't work outside the MS microcosm, it send additional annoying messages to all the recipients of the  original message.
On several occasions I've observed business office employees accidentally sending a message to a large list of recipients,  and then issuing such a "recall".
In all cases they had no clue, and were embarrassed when they were told of what actually happened.

While understandably   MS is trying to hook its users on their software (in a way similar to how drug dealers do that), misrepresenting things is bad in my books.

So,  I am sorry that you got hooked on Outpook and developed your habits (workflow) based on that. The good part is that  it's a soft drug, and that dependency is curable.

As for editing past emails, - there is some Orwellian flavor in that. Yes, errors happen; some can be embarrassing,  but such is live.

[vinces]

Re sTr's "I am sorry that you got hooked" I don't believe you. I wonder why you needed to take the discussion so far off topic, with such an irrelevant rant containing no actual news. Actually I don't wonder - it's all yours and you can keep it!

[StR]

Re sTr's "I am sorry that you got hooked" I don't believe you.

Denial is typical among the long-time users. And the first step toward the cure is to admit your dependency. 

 

[Kostya Vasilyev]

@vinces

You asked if it would be a big deal to implement this in AquaMail -- yes it would be.

And this is an unusual feature -- I'm not going to say anything about it being "bad" or "good" or "wrong" or "useful" but definitely unusual, if you look at other mail apps -- that I don't see it happening, when I could be working on other things with more visibility to the perhaps less experienced users ("less hooked on Outlook", StR might call it, but I'm not going to).