From: Jinwoo Lee <jinwoo68@gmail.com>
To: Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org
Subject: Re: emacs: Wrong "From" address when forwarding a mail
In-Reply-To: <8760zsyh5z.fsf@qmul.ac.uk>
References: <yq65fuyw3ohb.fsf@jinwoo-macbookair.roam.corp.google.com>
 <8760zsyh5z.fsf@qmul.ac.uk>
User-Agent: Notmuch/0.21+26~g8881a61 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.5.1
 (x86_64-apple-darwin15.0.0)
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2015 13:26:17 -0800
Message-ID: <yq65y4co7qx2.fsf@jinwoo-macbookair.roam.corp.google.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Precedence: list

On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can get around some of this by setting
> notmuch-always-prompt-for-sender to t (it is a customizable
> variable). This means that whenever you create a new message or forward
> a message you will be prompted to choose a sender address.

I think forwarding should be more symmetric with replying than with
sending a new message.  Forwarding is an act of sending a mail you
received at your account A to another person, and so the default account
that it's sent from must be account A, not one of your other accounts.

Isn't it really weird if a mail was "forwarded" from an account that
never had received that mail?

> Indeed, I am surprised you don't find it annoying that, when you start a
> new personal email (e.g., with "m"), notmuch uses your corp address.

I'm not surprised because it's a new mail and not associated with any of
my accounts yet before I send it.  Forwarding is different because it's
already associated with one of the accounts and that one should be the
default From address when forwarding.  That's my expectation and I think
it's intuitive.

>> Can we make notmuch-show-forward-message behave like
>> notmuch-show-reply-sender, which chooses the From address correctly?
>
> We could do this, but it's not clear to me that it is better than what
> we have. Indeed, under your suggestion, suppose someone with their
> personal address as their primary address received an idiotic email from
> their boss, which they forward to their wife saying "what an
> idiot". Suddenly, it is now being read by work...

Agreed that this issue can happen in this case.  Let's forget about the
privacy issue.

> Overall, I don't think is is possible for notmuch  to get this right
> enough of the time to make anything other than
> notmuch-always-prompt-for-sender sensible in this sort of situation.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Mark