Timestamp in a sent email

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Timestamp in a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

diggeryo wrote:my issue when sending mail this way is this--the time stamp that the person who received the email sees is the time I clicked "Send Later" and it actually went into my "Outbox," not the time it left my "Outbox" and was actually sent. Is there any way to change this behavior?
I am suffering from the very same problem. The problem is that most peoples' inboxes are sorted by date/time (of dispatch, not arrival), so when my Thunderbird sends a mail 1-2 days later, people miss it, because it is hidden between old mail somewhere on page 3 or 4 (in paginated inboxes) or a few pages above (in scrollable inboxes). I always get the same reaction, when I follow-up e.g. with a telephone call: "Ah yes, it's there. It's way up there. Must have missed it."

Is there a way (config editor perhaps?) to tell Thunderbird to timestamp all outgoing mail with the time of sending (instead of the time last edited)? This would seem more logical to me anyway, because the recipient mainly wants to know, when the mail was sent (not when it was last edited).

Is there any solution in Thunderbird itself, sans add-on ?
Last edited by chrizoo on September 16th, 2018, 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
DanRaisch
Moderator
Posts: 127188
Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by DanRaisch »

I am suffering from the very same problem.
It may be the same issue but diggeryo's thread died out 8 years ago, so I split your new post off to its own topic.
User avatar
makaiguy
Posts: 16878
Joined: November 18th, 2002, 6:44 pm
Location: Somewhere in SE USA
Contact:

Re: Timestamp for a sent email

Post by makaiguy »

[Question before message was split from original thread was how to send a pre-composed message and show current time stamp, instead of stamp from when originally composed, when sent via Send/Send Later.]
chrizoo wrote:Is there any solution in Thunderbird itself, sans add-on ?
I don't even know of a way avec add-on.

Best work around I can think of is not to save the finished message via Send/Later, but to Save the message as a Draft. When you're ready to send, locate the message in your account's Drafts folder and double-click it (or right-click/edit as new) to bring it back into the editing dialog. From there you can do additional editing if necessary, then hit Send to send it out with the current time stamp.
Doug Wilson
Win10 64bit: FF 115.0.02 64bit, TB 102.12.0 32-bit ║ Android 13/10: FF 115.2.0/115.0.1 ║ No TB for Android available, dammit!
What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away - Doobie Brothers
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Re: Timestamp for a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

makaiguy wrote:Best work around I can think of is not to save the finished message via Send/Later, but to Save the message as a Draft. When you're ready to send, locate the message in your account's Drafts folder and double-click it (or right-click/edit as new) to bring it back into the editing dialog. From there you can do additional editing if necessary, then hit Send to send it out with the current time stamp.
Thanks, but that isn't a working solution for me. There is information that gets lost this way – most importantly the correct sender address. And besides, it is lot of useless work if you have, say, 30 Mails in your outbox and you have to open all of them individually, choose the correct sender address, and other settings and then send them. For short mails it's more than twice the work. Not to mention the trouble if you once select the wrong sender address.

If there is no working solution, I will file a bug report. I just hoped there was something I didn't know.
diggeryo
Posts: 51
Joined: October 29th, 2008, 8:06 am

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by diggeryo »

DanRaisch wrote:
I am suffering from the very same problem.
It may be the same issue but diggeryo's thread died out 8 years ago, so I split your new post off to its own topic.
Eight years old, yes. But I still suffer from this issue. ;-)
User avatar
DanRaisch
Moderator
Posts: 127188
Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by DanRaisch »

And probably always will. It sounds like a requirement for a very limited number of users. I don't know that any email client will ever offer the exact functionality you are looking for.
diggeryo
Posts: 51
Joined: October 29th, 2008, 8:06 am

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by diggeryo »

DanRaisch wrote:And probably always will. It sounds like a requirement for a very limited number of users. I don't know that any email client will ever offer the exact functionality you are looking for.
It stopped being a need for me several years ago when I switched jobs. I originally needed it because I sent several emails for work every night, but didn't want my then boss to know how early I had them ready. ;-)
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

DanRaisch wrote:It sounds like a requirement for a very limited number of users.
This is purely a killer argument (phrase intended to kill any further discussion). And what is worse: it's not even true. ALL Thunderbird users are affected, who compose eMails offline. Plus you can add to that all users utilizing Thunderbird's send-later function.

And if it's a bug/problem, it's a legitimate issue to raise, independently of exactly how many people are affected (very many in this case).
User avatar
DanRaisch
Moderator
Posts: 127188
Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by DanRaisch »

No, I don't see it as a bug. If I send messages later or compose off-line I have no problem with the time stamp being the ACTUAL time it's sent. As far as the recipient is concerned that's the correct time. Composing at the airport (while offline) and sending four or eight or sixteen hours later after landing would be misleading. If I got a message like that I'd be complaining to my email provider about delays in delivering messages to my account.
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

DanRaisch wrote:No, I don't see it as a bug. If I send messages later or compose off-line I have no problem with the time stamp being the ACTUAL time it's sent.
Dan, you don't seem to understand the problem, and don't seem to have tried the very thing you are commenting on.
What you describe is the expected behaviour, but not the actual behaviour.
DanRaisch wrote:Composing at the airport (while offline) and sending four or eight or sixteen hours later after landing would be misleading.
what would be misleading and why ??
DanRaisch wrote:If I got a message like that I'd be complaining to my email provider about delays in delivering messages to my account.
sorry, I can't make sense of what you are trying to say
mgagnonlv
Posts: 848
Joined: February 12th, 2005, 8:33 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by mgagnonlv »

I use the Send Later extension and it behaves correctly.

I prepared a message at 16:07, clicked on "Send Later – 15 minutes later, so it left at 16:22:55. It arrived at the destination server at 16:23:01.

Thunderbird tells me that the message was sent at 16:22, which is ok.

So in a nutshell, if you need messages timestamped when they actually leave your computer, install the Send Later extension.

Finally, if you want to see the time you receive a message, install this extension: Imap Received Date.

------

Note. "Send Later" can be configured to send later by default; it also works wonderfully with the "Mail Merge" extension.
Michel Gagnon
Montréal (Québec, Canada)
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

IMO it doesn't make any sense to timestamp outgoing mail with the time last edited instead of the (current) time of sending. The recipient primarily wants to know, when the received mails were sent. Not when they were last edited.
diggeryo wrote:Eight years old, yes. But I still suffer from this issue. ;-)
Thanks for chiming in.

Here are the bugzilla entries:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1491669
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1423462

Everyone affected by the problem can upvote the bugs please, so that they may have better chances of getting reopened and fixed. Thank you.
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

mgagnonlv wrote:I use the Send Later extension and it behaves correctly.
Thanks. This is a core Thunderbird bug and should get fixed. I don't want to use extensions because of Thunderbird bugs, that's not what they are intended for. Also, if an extension stops being updated, we are left with the same problem unhandled by the Thunderbird core.

However, if it won't get fixed, I hope that it will at least work with this extension, therefore I'm very thankful that you are bringing this up.

mgagnonlv wrote:I prepared a message at 16:07, clicked on "Send Later – 15 minutes later, so it left at 16:22:55. It arrived at the destination server at 16:23:01. Thunderbird tells me that the message was sent at 16:22, which is ok.
Ok, but what time is displayed for the recipient? 16:07 or 16:22?
Could you test that (by sending a mail to yourself or your secondary address)?

While 15 minutes are negligibly (for practical purposes), 3 days would change a lot.

mgagnonlv wrote:So in a nutshell, if you need messages timestamped when they actually leave your computer, install the Send Later extension.
This seems to take care of "send later" when online.
Does it also take care of "send now" when offline ?
mgagnonlv wrote:if you want to see the time you receive a message, install this extension: Imap Received Date.
You can also simply show the "received" column in Thunderbird (without extension). What is the difference?
mgagnonlv wrote:"Send Later" can be configured to send later by default
what do you mean by that?
mgagnonlv
Posts: 848
Joined: February 12th, 2005, 8:33 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by mgagnonlv »

chrizoo wrote:
mgagnonlv wrote:I prepared a message at 16:07, clicked on "Send Later – 15 minutes later, so it left at 16:22:55. It arrived at the destination server at 16:23:01. Thunderbird tells me that the message was sent at 16:22, which is ok.
Ok, but what time is displayed for the recipient? 16:07 or 16:22?
Could you test that (by sending a mail to yourself or your secondary address)?

While 15 minutes are negligibly (for practical purposes), 3 days would change a lot.

The recipient sees "16:22"
Michel Gagnon
Montréal (Québec, Canada)
User avatar
chrizoo
Posts: 374
Joined: October 11th, 2006, 5:58 pm

Re: Timestamp in a sent email

Post by chrizoo »

That's great news. Thanks for reporting that!
mgagnonlv wrote:"Send Later" can be configured to send later by default
Do you mean that the "send later" extension takes over control from TB, so that the "send later" function is handled by the extension rather than Thunderbird ?

And if you could answer my other 2 questions above, I would be very thankful.
Post Reply