How do I set the "Reply To" address to the same as the mail was received on?

[LondonAqua]

I use a "catch all" address so I can see who's selling my email, where all the emails arrive at a single email account.

How can I make replies automatically set the "Reply To" address to the same as the one I received the email on (which is correctly displayed in AquaMail)?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

But do you need to?

You can just add it as an identity / alias into the account, and it will be used as the "From" address when replying -- and then any mail app "on the other side" when replying will use this address when replying (since there won't be a Reply-To).

[LondonAqua]

I had a look at the identities features, and while great, it doesn't actually do what I need.

I use a different email (in the same domain) for every website I register with (like this one) or paper form that asks for an email. I have dozens and I don't have to "create" or configure them in advance, they just appear in the "catch-all" mailbox. When someone sells it, I know exactly who did it and can block them without affecting anyone else.

Whether it's the Identities feature (or a simple reply-to), the use of multiple, unregistered addresses is the key issue.

Perhaps the Identities function could accept a regex or pattern like *@my.domain.uk ?

[LondonAqua]

A "catch-all" mailbox is a server-side setting so that any unknown email addresses for my domain get delivered to a named mailbox.

For example, on my domain "anything-goes-here(at)my.domain.uk" (not my real domain) gets delivered to the predefined account "anon".

When I provide an email to register on a website, I enter something unique to that website and it gets delivered to the "anon" account, and AquaMail correctly shows the original address it was sent to.

This way if a website gets hacked, or they sell my address to third party marketing companies, I know which organisation sold it and can block them by changing that address on my email server to redirect to my spam account. It's like having a wildcard rule on the server that delivers any mailbox name to a specific account.

The only issue is if I have to reply to one of those emails, the from-address (or reply to) is not automatically set to the address the mail was sent to, but is from "anon(at)my.domain.uk"

Does that explain it better?

[LondonAqua]

No, but I've not looked recently. And if I did if be torn as I've been able AquaMail Pro user for years and would miss it!

[LondonAqua]

If you're interested, my email is hosted by one.com, who provide the catch-all functionality. It works really well - you'd be surprised who sells email addresses, including my local council and a major supermarket.

[nica]

Just by curiosity, do you know another email app doing what you need (reply-to)?

There are (have been?) two addons for Mozilla Thunderbird (Desktop),  which at least allow to edit the sender on the fly:

https://github.com/absorb-it/Virtual-Identity
and
https://freeshell.de//~kaosmos/index-en.html#editsender


Nowadays I think it's better/necessary to create an identity for each address I would like to use as a sender. Then every serious mail client will choose the correct identity when replying.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Um, yes, sorry Aqua Mail doesn't let you freely edit the From address (not something that is needed often / or works at all, the way you have things set up is not common).

The problem with automatically choosing "your" address that the message "was delivered to" is that -- the app has no way to know that this *is* your address. A message might have "your" address in the BCC and a completely unrelated, someone else's address in the TO or CC.

[LondonAqua]

Ah, ok, I see the issue. I know the set up isn't common, but it is very useful

Would it be possible to have an option to set the from (or reply-to) on the primary recipient (to original To addressee) if no other addresses were present? Perhaps add an option to the "Reply To" setting which says "original receipient" rather than only accepting a specific address?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Would it be possible to have an option to set the from (or reply-to) on the primary recipient (to original To addressee) if no other addresses were present? Perhaps add an option to the "Reply To" setting which says "original receipient" rather than only accepting a specific address?

I'd have to think about this -- as you wrote yourself, this scenario isn't at all common.

[nica]

@Kostya:
Please be aware, that such a feature could might cause complaining of users, because it will not work in most cases. Many mail server do not allow to change the sender without having created this new address as verified alias/identity.

Example
If your address is "myname@myprovider.com", this provider will not allow sending messages by spoofing with sender's address "othername@myprovider.com".

So 95 percent of users will get error messages, when it would be possible with AquaMail and they would try to do it.

[LondonAqua]

Obviously, this would have to be an option, not a default as it might affect existing users.

I understand the scenario isn't common, but it would be really useful to me and anyone else who uses a catch-all address.

[LondonAqua]

...also, setting the "Reply-To" field rather than the "From" will not change the account or security requirements of  the server - reply-to is informative, not definitive.

[nica]

Sorry, I don't understand the relation to "reply-to"-field...

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Please be aware, that such a feature could might cause complaining of users, because it will not work in most cases. Many mail server do not allow to change the sender without having created this new address as verified alias/identity.

Yes I am aware of it at least for the From address. There is a reason email apps are based around the concept of an *account*.

It may be different for Reply-To headers, but I don't really know.