Custom reply headers like in Outlook, custom date format

[ygoe]

The default reply header goes like "XYZ wrote:". It's a simple line, and the entire quoted message content is indented by a quote character or element. Signature goes way to the end. That's the usenet quoting style. It's nice if everybody does that, but in reality, nobody does it and it results in TOFU which is unreadable.

Outlook uses a different style. It doesn't indent the quoted message but moves it to the end and inserts a header that includes some useful information, like the sender name, address, and date and recipients. This is the common and expected style in business communication. Sadly, almost everyone uses Outlook and expects the same style. But it's actually very practical. It's just Thunderbird that can't achieve this without extensions (which all broke in the past).

There are some hacks with hidden options in Thunderbird, but they have negative side effects like removing all existing quote indents even in the quoted content! So Thunderbird will then manipulate the quoted message (and make quotes indistinguishable)!

Also, the date format must be configurable, or at least universally understood. When I'm writing to other countries, my local date format will not be understood there. This is also very short-sighted.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[MichaelMulligan]

I use a terrible kludge.  I use "Forward" and then hand-edit the message.

That might, however, point to a way to change or add to Thunderbird with minimal effort.  Either Thunderbird could have an option and share much of the code OR it might lead to a simple, more stable extension.  [I know almost nothing about Thunderbird extensions.]

Michael M. Mulligan

[wsm]

@ygoe so you are looking for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218258 ??

[Mozillafan]

I hope the count of msgs in this thread are not being used to evaluate the desire for this feature!  TB are now doing Exchange server connects so if you're wanting to tempt people across from Outlook etc then the full reply header needs adding in native TB, not in the ReplyWithHeader add-in, without which I would have not been using TB for 20+ years.

[Seven1]

There is literally no reason not to include this feature in Thunderbird, since it already exists when forwarding a message and anyone coming from outlook or other email clients expect this behaviour as the norm. Being forced to rely on an extension to do this one simple thing or trying to forward an email first to get the email headers and then editing it manually into a reply, is a bit silly in 2026. (or any other year to be completely honest)

The bug report is over 20 years old and people are still asking for it. I cannot understand why this cannot be made as a simple option in the settings menu. It would not take a lot of time to implement and so many people would be really happy with it: 😊 < like this 😁 < or like this even... (and no one would be harmed by it)

In the bug report the argument against implementing this feature amounted to: "I don't agree with the logic of including email headers when replying to an email, it makes no sense to me" Well if this is the only argument against it, and implementing it as an option doesn't take a lot of time, and many people are used to it as the default behaviour and are requesting it because they need it for their work... Just add the feature as an option and every person can decide for themselves whether to keep it enabled or disabled.

This will literally solve everyone's problems. So why not just add it? 🤷

To whoever is responsible for deciding these things or bringing them up for discussion internally in the Thunderbird team, I very kindly and politely request that you seriously consider implementing this small (but very important) feature -especially in a business environment- so that we can close this 20+ year old bug once and for all and help make Thunderbird THE best open source client out there bar none. 👍🏻

Thank you for listening.