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Having Tbird assume "accepts HTML emails" is the default for recipients

Andrew Janke
Andrew Janke
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I'm working with Thunderbird's Send Options to figure out how to get my Thunderbird to send HTML to most people, but send plain text to the cranky folks who insist on text-only. It's 2020, and most people these days are fine with HTML email. I'd like the behavior to be that Tbird sends plain text when possible, and when I have formatting, it will silently go ahead and send HTML emails, except when one of the recipients in it is in one of the Plain Text domains or has been explicitly marked as preferring Plain Text in my address book.

I've enabled "Send messages as plain text if possible", and listed "@gnu.org" in my Plain Text Domains. I have not marked the preferred email type for any recipients in my Address Book.

If I change "When sending messages in HTML format...:" to "Ask me what to do", I'm now getting prompted about HTML formatting on every email I send. It seems that Tbird is seeing the "Prefers to receive messages formatted as: Unknown" in my contacts and treating that as "not known to receive HTML".

I would like to be able to set Thunderbird to assume that those Unknowns can receive HTML text, and only prompt me when there's a recipient who has been explicitly set to "Prefers: Plain Text" or is in the Plain Text Domains list.

I'm working with Thunderbird's Send Options to figure out how to get my Thunderbird to send HTML to most people, but send plain text to the cranky folks who insist on text-only. It's 2020, and most people these days are fine with HTML email. I'd like the behavior to be that Tbird sends plain text when possible, and when I have formatting, it will silently go ahead and send HTML emails, except when one of the recipients in it is in one of the Plain Text domains or has been explicitly marked as preferring Plain Text in my address book. I've enabled "Send messages as plain text if possible", and listed "@gnu.org" in my Plain Text Domains. I have not marked the preferred email type for any recipients in my Address Book. If I change "When sending messages in HTML format...:" to "Ask me what to do", I'm now getting prompted about HTML formatting on every email I send. It seems that Tbird is seeing the "Prefers to receive messages formatted as: Unknown" in my contacts and treating that as "not known to receive HTML". I would like to be able to set Thunderbird to assume that those Unknowns can receive HTML text, and only prompt me when there's a recipient who has been explicitly set to "Prefers: Plain Text" or is in the Plain Text Domains list.

Chosen solution

The most compatible send option is to use text and HTML. This allows the mail reader at the other end to select the content system it understands. As a sender we are generally unaware of the capabilities of the recipients mail system so sending both gets a readable message to everyone even if they have some ancient text only email program.

For the cranky old Far%s and the more extreme open source folks that are the cause of Linux staying niche. Set the flag in the address book prefers to "receive messages formatted as" to plain text to over ride the general global setting. When you send the text only representation of your email will be sent, so tables will be converted to tabs etc.

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All Replies (2)

Matt
Matt
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Seçilmiş Həll

The most compatible send option is to use text and HTML. This allows the mail reader at the other end to select the content system it understands. As a sender we are generally unaware of the capabilities of the recipients mail system so sending both gets a readable message to everyone even if they have some ancient text only email program.

For the cranky old Far%s and the more extreme open source folks that are the cause of Linux staying niche. Set the flag in the address book prefers to "receive messages formatted as" to plain text to over ride the general global setting. When you send the text only representation of your email will be sent, so tables will be converted to tabs etc.

Andrew Janke
Andrew Janke Question owner
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Works for me. You can consider this fixed.