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Re: MUA support for multiple from addresses

2012-02-27 16:32:41

At 10:35 AM -0800 2/27/12, Peter Bowen wrote:

 Mails are allowed to have multiple addresses in the from header as
 long as they also have a sender header.  However, in basic testing, I
 have yet to find a MUA that even displays multiple entries for from.
 Has anyone seen such a user agent?  Functionally, should multiple from
 addresses be considered a deprecated feature?

Eudora for Mac (through v6 at least) has a setting allowing the From header field in a message composition window to be editable. I have this option set (and very frequently edit the From address to be a one-off or something else that doesn't match a specific personality). I have on rare occasion set the From header field to be two addresses, although I don't know how the receiving clients display this.

These days, there is often a belief, mistaken in my view, that restricting the addresses people are able to use in the From header field improves security. As an example, the message submission server I'm supposed to use rejects messages from an address it doesn't think I should be using, including any user-detail address, or when I use Eudora's "Redirect" feature (which re-sends a received message to someone else, preserving the original value of the From header field, but adding a "(by way of ...)" comment).

Given the lack of wide support for multiple addresses, and the increasingly restrictive view of From addresses, it may make sense to think about if this feature should be deprecated.

--
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
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