3.12 Replying to a message and deciding recipients

As distinguished from the case of a new message, where the writer specifies the addresses of the To:, Cc: or Newsgroups: fields, in a reply message addresses are automatically generated.

When ‘a’ and ‘A’ is used in Summary mode, a new draft is prepared in Draft mode. Values of To:, Cc:, and Newsgroups: are prepared according to three alists.

1. If called with ‘C-u’, replying to the sender/poster only. In this case, ‘mew-reply-sender-alist’ is used.
2. If this message is sent by ME, you probably intend to reply with the original header. In this case, ‘mew-reply-fromme-alist’ is used.
3. Otherwise, replying to all people listed. In this case, ‘mew-reply-all-alist’ is used.

The default value of ‘mew-reply-sender-alist’ is as follows:

'(("Reply-To:"
   ("To:" "Reply-To:" "From:"))
  (t
   ("To:" "From:")))

This is read as follows:

1. If Reply-To: exists, copy the values of Reply-To: and From: to new To:.
2. Otherwise, copy the value of From: to To:.

If you would like to reply only to the address on Reply-To: (if any), set ‘mew-reply-sender-alist’ like this:

(setq mew-reply-sender-alist
      '(("Reply-To:"
         ("To:" "Reply-To:"))
        (t
         ("To:" "From:"))))

The default value of ‘mew-reply-fromme-alist’ is as follows:

'((t
   ("To:" "To:")
   ("Cc:" "Cc:")
   ("Newsgroups:" "Newsgroups:"))))

This is read as follows:

1. Copying the value of To: to new To: and copying the value of Cc: to new Cc: and copying the value of Newsgroups: to new Newsgroups:.

The default value of ‘mew-reply-all-alist’ is as follows:

'((("Followup-To:" "poster")
   ("To:" "From:"))
  ("Followup-To:"
   ("Newsgroups:" "Followup-To:" "Newsgroups:"))
  ("Newsgroups:"
   ("Newsgroups:" "Newsgroups:"))
  ("Reply-To:"
   ("To:" "Reply-To:" "From:")
   ("Cc:" "To:" "Cc:" "Apparently-To:"))
  (t
   ("To:" "From:")
   ("Cc:" "To:" "Cc:" "Apparently-To:")))

This is read as follows:

1. If the value of Followup-To: is "poster", copying the value of From: to new To:.
2. If Followup-To: exists, copying the values of Followup-To: and Newsgroups: to new Newsgroups:.
3. If Newsgroups: exists, copying the value of Newsgroups: to Newsgroups:.
4. If Reply-To: exists, copying the values of Reply-To: and From: to new To:. And copying the values of To:, Cc:, and Apparently-To: to new Cc:.
5. Otherwise, copying the value of From: to new To:. And copying the values of To:, Cc:, and Apparently-To: to new Cc:.

You may want to set ‘mew-reply-all-alist’ like this:

(setq mew-reply-all-alist
      '((("Followup-To:" "poster")
         ("To:" "From:"))
        ("Followup-To:"
         ("Newsgroups:" "Followup-To:"))
        ("Newsgroups:"
         ("Newsgroups:" "Newsgroups:"))
        ("Reply-To:"
         ("To:" "Reply-To:"))
        (t
         ("To:" "From:")
         ("Cc:" "To:" "Cc:" "Apparently-To:"))))

If there are multiple entries for a certain address, they are unified. Addresses ending with ":;", which indicates anonymous recipients, are automatically removed.

Your addresses are automatically removed. Your addresses are automatically defined to ‘mew-mail-address-list’ according to, for example, ‘mew-config-alist’. If you dislike this value, you can also explicitly set it like this:

(setq mew-mail-address-list
       '("^pooh@[a-z]*.example.org$"
         "^pooh@example.net$"
         "^winnie@example.jp$"))

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