Just to add my "2 cents".
With one of the private (non-commercial) servers I am using, - the users have an ability to generate/give unique e-mail addresses to businesses (messages to which would be forwarded to the real account(s) ). This allows cutting off the stream of spam once that address is sold or acquired by spammers after that business is hacked: a specific address can be blocked at the server.
(With all of that, I am still not giving my e-mail address to businesses unless
I think it is necessary. -- The fact that they
ask) does not matter.)
In Thunderbird, you can "Manage identities", and create alternative identities for the accounts, --- pretty much as it is done in Aquamail.
But, you can also write in
ANY "From:" address by hand. These days, all that is "native", i.e. without any additional add-on or plugin. (@nica)
There is a huge difference between an alternative "From:" and "Reply-To:". The former does not expose (it may depend on the SMTP server configuration) the real e-mail address, which is important when you are dealing with Spammers or businesses who sell your address. "Reply-To:" exposes your real address.
The main limitation of Aquamail in this scenario is lack of possibility to write in a chosen (arbitrary) address to the field "From:"I understand that the traditional e-mail model is based on the specific account. But the fact that (1) Thunderbird (which is one of the major e-mail clients) allows that and (2) some commercial services started offering an option of using alternative (including essentially arbitrary) addresses, indicates some shift in the paradigm.
So, it would be useful for some Aquamail users to be able to write in an arbitrary "From:" address.
What are the "cons" of enabling this?
I understand a potential concern that there will be complaints: "I wrote in my address as 'TheQueen@kremlin.ru', and my provider didn't allow sending that message (or re-wrote the headers)."
But the situation would be the same if one created a permanent identity with the same address without enabling the identity with the mail provider.
As the description for one of the "virtual identity" plugins referenced by @nica says:
"Using Virtual Identity you can simply edit the sender-address in your email to whatever you like - as long as your mail-server accepts the resulting mail. This is useful especially for people who have an own mail-server and don’t like adding every possible account as an Identity in the mail-client. "
Now, in regards to the suggestion of the OP to enable an automatic placement of the address in "To:" to "From:" in reply. I see the merit behind that suggestion, but from the technical point of view, it is not very "algorithmic" decision, but it includes heuristics. As Kostya pointed out, - the app has no reliable way {*} knowing reliably which is
your address. Besides choosing between To: and Cc:, and your address not appearing in either of those fields because it was in Bcc: (or sent via a mailing list), there is yet another issue. The OP suggested:
Perhaps the Identities function could accept a regex or pattern like *@my.domain.uk ?
The problem with that is that some spam messages include multiple (including nonexistent) addresses at the same domain in To: or Cc:, e.g. alex@my.domain.uk, john@my.domain.uk, someothercommonname@my.domain.uk . Which one would you like Aquamail to use?
@KostyaA viable scenario that I can see is as follows:
1. A
per account option to add "Auto-choice for virtual addresses".
2. If that option is enabled, enter a domain(s) into sub-option configuration: my.domain.uk or {my.domain.uk, my.domain2.uk, and myother.domain.uk}
3. If "use the recipient's identity for replies" is enabled and no configured identity/account is found in the message, Aquamail offers a choice that would include all the addresses found in the message (in To: and Cc:, and if possible in the last "Received:"), and all configured identities and accounts.
{*} If the last, i.e. recipient's provider's MTA (mail-transfer agent) receives the message only for one address, then the last "Received:" header, which is generated by that MTA contains the specific address of the recipient to which the message was ultimately sent. But, if there were more than one recipients (even if any address was nonexistent), that "Received:" field may not have any address. That would make it impossible to determine which address it was sent to. At least, that's how sendmail behaves (I just verified that.)
tl;dr;:
1. Ability to "write in" any address in "From:" would be a welcome (and a safe) addition.
2. Please, consider implementing "respond using virtual identity" as described above.
