This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Why are received messages moved to Sent after a reply?

wonderinggal
wonderinggal
more options

Recently, I have been mystified by what has happened to received messages in my inbox that I forwarded or replied to. After much searching, I've discovered the received message was moved to the Sent folder as well as the sent reply. Why is this happening? The original received message was not sent by me so it should stay in the inbox. I want the original received message to stay in the inbox so I can decide whether to archive or trash it.

I've gone through all my account settings and they all have that replies should go to the Sent folder of the account. There is no setting for moving the original received message to anywhere except an Archive. Why are they automatically being moved to Sent?

I looked in the forum for an answer but all the Thunderbird questions are answered for Outlook, which isn't Thunderbird. I am using Thunderbird for Mac OS X.

Recently, I have been mystified by what has happened to received messages in my inbox that I forwarded or replied to. After much searching, I've discovered the received message was moved to the Sent folder as well as the sent reply. Why is this happening? The original received message was not sent by me so it should stay in the inbox. I want the original received message to stay in the inbox so I can decide whether to archive or trash it. I've gone through all my account settings and they all have that replies should go to the Sent folder of the account. There is no setting for moving the original received message to anywhere except an Archive. Why are they automatically being moved to Sent? I looked in the forum for an answer but all the Thunderbird questions are answered for Outlook, which isn't Thunderbird. I am using Thunderbird for Mac OS X.

All Replies (2)

amanchesterman
amanchesterman
more options

Are you sure that it's Thunderbird that is moving the messages you've replied to into the Sent folder? There's an online post here complaining that this is yet another 'helpful' feature of Gmail: is your account with them? http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/46066/keeping-gmail-messages-in-the-inbox-after-they-are-answered

wonderinggal
wonderinggal Mwenye swali
more options

Thanks but none of the accounts I use in Thunderbird are Gmail accounts. I use a browser to handle Gmail and I agree that it is annoying that Gmail glues all replies together with the original message.

This is purely a Thunderbird problem. Thankfully, it isn't gluing the reply or the forward message to the original message as in Gmail's threading feature. The reply or forward message is put in the Sent folder separately. The original message is also moved there but remains unattached to the reply or forward. It isn't necessary to move them there because the original message is included in the reply or forwarded message. The original incoming message should not be moved by Thunderbird until I move it where I want it to be stored (or trashed). Making the incoming received message disappear from the inbox is confusing because I may direct the reply to be stored in a specific topic folder and then I have to search each account to figure out where the original went to so I can move it to the topic folder.