"Send To" Address Setting

[J-D-H]

I have several email accounts, all carefully set up in PP. The regular POP3 account has a "Reply To" field which is set as I want it to be. However some of the accounts (Yahoo, for instance) are online accounts which use the Webmail plugin, and some of these have no "Reply To" field. I'm not sure whether this happens all of the, but often I reply to someone, and later their reply come s back to me in a wrong account. Example: I receive an email in my Verizon account (POP3, and it has a "Reply To" field set properly). I reply to this email using PP, and later a reply comes back, however for some reason it arrives in my Yahoo account in PP (which uses the Webmail plugin and has NO reply-to field, if that matters).

It seems the header in my Verizon reply is being ignored at the recipient's end -- it's as if the "Reply-To" field for the Verizon account is set to my Yahoo account -- but this is not so. I don't understand what is happening......!

John

[mjs]

Refer to Jeff's posts in this topic; Blank To: and missing address in From: on what to do for Yahoo Webmail accounts ("Yahoo" Server type) regarding this issue, make sure you have the corresponding Webmail plugin version referenced in this linked post (Webmail v4.2.1 (Jun 27, 2016) - Yahoo: Updates for both basic and full interfaces (header information)). Link to reference Webmail updates: http://www.esumsoft.com/products/pop-peeper/plugins/, scroll down to bottom and click on Version History for details.

[J-D-H]

I have always used the most up to date Webmail plugin (I believe currently, 4.2.4.0), but this problem is not new -- this odd "reply-to" behavior has been going on for a long time (maybe years; certainly many months). As far as I can tell, the problem does not seem to be with the Yahoo account settings themselves. It is more a problem with some of the other email accounts. So referring back to my earlier example, I might reply to someone's email which they sent to my Verizon email account. Then they reply back by pressing their reply "button", and rather than their latest email coming back to my Verizon account again as it did originally, it is often received into my Yahoo account. This seems to say the the header of my outgoing Verizon email contains the wrong reply-to address, that is, the Yahoo address instead of the Verizon address (which is the settings I use and have verified). Over these many months, I have tried deleting several accounts on several occasions, and then recreating them from scratch in PP -- this did not help. To sum up..... It seems there is a mix-up between some of the email account addresses and their reply-to settings.

I just checked my account settings..... The accounts I have setup which DO have Reply-To fields are: Verizon and Gmail. The ones which do NOT have a Reply-To field are: Hotmail, Lycos, and Yahoo. If I look under the Send Mail tab for the latter 3 accounts, they all say "Webmail". Verizon and Gmail say "SMTP".

[Jeff]

If I understand correctly -- you have specified a "reply-to" address for your verizon account. What have you set it to? (I don't need to know exactly what it is, but is it your @verizon or @yahoo address?)

Specifying a reply-to address is *not* typical; that is, most people will and should have this field blank. Specifying a reply-to address tells the *recipient* what email address they should reply to instead of the original "from" address. So if, for example, in your @verizon account, you have specified your reply-to field to be @yahoo, then anybody who replies to your email will be replying to @yahoo instead of @verizon. Since you say you expect replies to be sent to your @verizon account, then you should leave the reply-to field blank.

[J-D-H]

Yes, my Reply-To field contains exactly the same Verizon email address. IOW, there is no mention of Yahoo in any respect within the settings for my Verizon account. As a matter of fact, for all the accounts I have set up in PP, wherever a Reply-To field is available, my habit is to fill those in with the same address as used by each account. It may not be necessary, but I figured "why not, what harm could this do?". It seems that I may have been wrong, but I sure cannot see why......

John

[Jeff]

Is it possible that you changed the account while the reply window was open?

Do you have a specific example where this happened? By default, POP Peeper saves all messages that you've sent, so we can examine the original message and see what's happening -- whether it was sent from a different account than you expected or if it was using a different reply-to.

If you have the POP Peeper Plus Pack with Sent Mail Viewer (SMV), it will make this a little easier, but it can be done without it. So before I dive into the "how-to" let me know:
1) do you have a specific (recent) example?
2) Do you have SMV?

wherever a Reply-To field is available, my habit is to fill those in with the same address... what harm could this do?

ehhh.... my argument would be "more harm than good."


1) More chance of mistakes/typos
2) Unless you include your name in the reply-to field, it won't be included. From personal experience (ie. you're not the only one who does this), there are times when I get an email from "John Smith <jsmith@test.com>" and when I reply, I notice the "to" recipient is now only "jmsith@test.com". In many cases, this is inconsequential, but if you're sending a group email, then the other recipients will only see your email address instead of your name when someone replies.
3) Suppose jsmith@test.com gets a lot of spam and you decide to abandon that email address and use jsmith2@test.com instead. Instead of creating a new account, you just edit your existing account and update the login and email address. But -- oops -- you forgot to change the reply-to and so everybody is replying to jsmith@test.com

I'll let you know if I think of any *advantages*...

[J-D-H]

Is it possible that you changed the account while the reply window was open?

Do you have a specific example where this happened? By default, POP Peeper saves all messages that you've sent, so we can examine the original message and see what's happening -- whether it was sent from a different account than you expected or if it was using a different reply-to.

If you have the POP Peeper Plus Pack with Sent Mail Viewer (SMV), it will make this a little easier, but it can be done without it. So before I dive into the "how-to" let me know:
1) do you have a specific (recent) example?
2) Do you have SMV?

wherever a Reply-To field is available, my habit is to fill those in with the same address... what harm could this do?

ehhh.... my argument would be "more harm than good."


1) More chance of mistakes/typos
2) Unless you include your name in the reply-to field, it won't be included. From personal experience (ie. you're not the only one who does this), there are times when I get an email from "John Smith <jsmith@test.com>" and when I reply, I notice the "to" recipient is now only "jmsith@test.com". In many cases, this is inconsequential, but if you're sending a group email, then the other recipients will only see your email address instead of your name when someone replies.
3) Suppose jsmith@test.com gets a lot of spam and you decide to abandon that email address and use jsmith2@test.com instead. Instead of creating a new account, you just edit your existing account and update the login and email address. But -- oops -- you forgot to change the reply-to and so everybody is replying to jsmith@test.com

I'll let you know if I think of any *advantages*...

I certainly do not recall ever changing any of my account settings while the reply window was open, but of course anything is possible. All I can say now is: "no, that's not at all likely".

Sorry, but I do not have any specific examples. However, now that I have become sensitized to this problem, you can bet that I will check the header fields in my future replies. If I see anything spooky, I will post the information here.

I do not have the SMV add-on, but I have located where the copies are saved -- I believe they are saved in individual account sub-folders under this main folder:

c:\Documents and Settings\~my_user_name~\Application Data\POP Peeper\

Assuming I can open these saved reply copies somehow (or at least view them as plain text), I will attempt to verify that the header fields make no mention of my Yahoo account anywhere.

The rest of your comments seem to really boil down to making typos. I have checked and double checked that no typos are involved, and I believe I have looked in all relevant places within PP. But again.... maybe I missed something. The more I think about it, the more it seems that I MUST have missed something!

[Jeff]

To access the Sent folder in Explorer, you can also select an account and then, from the main menu, select View / Explore -> Sent. You would need to check both the original account the message was in and -- in case the account was changed -- the account you unexpectedly received the message in.

In the event that the message really was sent from the original account, then you would need to edit the message in a text editor and search for the "reply-to" field in the header.

[J-D-H]

I had an opportunity to send a reply last night via PP. When I inspected the saved sent message, the header fields (including "from" and "reply to") were correct. However I did notice something I had not paid attention to previously. The saved message file had the extension ".eml". When I double clicked on this file, it opened in my regular POP3 program, Mozilla Thunderbird. Is ".eml " a universal extension for saved emails, or proprietary to Thunderbird? Does my POP3 program get used behind the scenes in any way by PP? If yes, then could what I have been seeing now and again be somehow attributed to Thunderbird instead of PP? Is PP fully standalone in what it does?

[mjs]

Jeff can better answer all your questions, but I'll just touch on some of what your asking for now as I understand it.

Thunderbird is one of a number of Email Clients that use the .eml extension for their message files (actually .eml belongs to the Microsoft's family of e-mail clients). The reason Thunderbird opens when clicking on the .eml file is because you presumably have Thunderbird set as your default Email Client. Since .eml files are created to comply with the industry RFC 822 standard, they can be used with most e-mail clients, servers and applications (FYI; EML is an acronym for E-mail btw). Any Email Clients you might have that use the .eml file extension for their messages will be associated with the .eml file type (see example below).

Here is an example; One of my Email Clients is Postbox Express (which also happens to be my default Email Client), notice my computer's .eml file type association (click on image to enlarge for better viewing):

In my case .eml file extension is associated with my default Email Client Postbox Express.

Presumably in your case your file type association for .eml files is set to Thunderbird and therefore clicking on that file type will open Thunderbird. Of course POP Peeper interfaces with the respective Email Client(s) that are associated with each of the corresponding Email account(s) to produce each of the respective account(s) messages setup in POP Peeper, details on this can be better explained by Jeff.

[Jeff]

lakrsrool pretty much summed it up. One way to think of it: the .eml format is exactly the same format in which email is transmitted via servers and clients. So any email client should be capable of opening the .eml format. That being said, I don't know if this is still the case, but Outlook is one known client that chooses not to allow external .eml messages to be opened.

To open .eml messages in POP Peeper:
- main menu: File / Open saved message
or, to set PP as the default .eml handler (so that double-clicking on them from WinExplorer will open in PP)
- main menu: Tools / Options; General page: Register POP Peeper as Windows Email client

[J-D-H]

Jeff can better answer all your questions, but I'll just touch on some of what your asking for now as I understand it.

Thunderbird is one of a number of Email Clients that use the .eml extension for their message files (actually .eml belongs to the Microsoft's family of e-mail clients). The reason Thunderbird opens when clicking on the .eml file is because you presumably have Thunderbird set as your default Email Client. Since .eml files are created to comply with the industry RFC 822 standard, they can be used with most e-mail clients, servers and applications (FYI; EML is an acronym for E-mail btw). Any Email Clients you might have that use the .eml file extension for their messages will be associated with the .eml file type (see example below).

Here is an example; One of my Email Clients is Postbox Express (which also happens to be my default Email Client), notice my computer's .eml file type association (click on image to enlarge for better viewing): File Type Association.png Presumably in your case your file type association for .eml files is set to Thunderbird and therefore clicking on that file type will open Thunderbird. Of course POP Peeper interfaces with the respective Email Client(s) that are associated with each of the corresponding Email account(s) to produce each of the respective account(s) messages setup in POP Peeper, details on this can be better explained by Jeff.

Thanks for the explanation. BTW, the reason I asked about this was an attempt at fishing around for an answer as to why I have occasionally seen email replies which oddly come back to the wrong account(s). I wondered whether any other software (like Thunderbird) might be involved somehow in what PP does during its normal operation.

[J-D-H]

lakrsrool pretty much summed it up. One way to think of it: the .eml format is exactly the same format in which email is transmitted via servers and clients. So any email client should be fully of opening the .eml format. That being said, I don't know if this is still the case, but Outlook is one known client that chooses not to allow external .eml messages to be opened.

To open .eml messages in POP Peeper:
- main menu: File / Open saved message
or, to set PP as the default .eml handler (so that double-clicking on them from WinExplorer will open in PP)
- main menu: Tools / Options; General page: Register POP Peeper as Windows Email client

Very good on the EML format info.

I'm now using PP on a daily basis, hoping to come up with an example of those replies which come into unexpected accounts. If and when I see another one of these occurrences, I'll let you know. In the meantime, thanks for all the help!