[MlMt] "X-Envelope-to" - should be more visble

[Michael Nietzold]

Out of 71k in "All Messages"
There are 61k are in a Submailbox where I have condition: 
`X-Envelope-To` -> `exists`
= araound 85%

It seems some Mailer "destruct" many recipients or mailing lists from 
the `to` into the "real" e-mail where it is delivered to.

I just found it because I inspected a Mail where I did not see an `to` 
header.

> I don't think you can get the simple Search box to search non-standard 
> headers. You can make it search all text and "common" headers, but 
> this one isn't common.

But it would be nice to have some settings to include some more headers 
to be indexed. Maybe somehow with `defaults write`

>> Some of them are don't have a to: header
> Technically not wrong if at one time it had a Bcc.

But the problem: with the normal search I can not find them in the mails 
- because the only place where it can be found a match with an eMail is 
in the `x-envelope-to`

> If you pull down the menu with header names, you will see "Other..." 
> at the very end.

I also found it when I put this in the search box: `X-Envelope-to: 
myname at mydomain.com`


>> I would also like to see this header as a line in the mail view.
>
> Not a lot of people would find that useful, given the general rarity 
> of that specific header...

If it is so rare, then nobody get hurt when it is included. When the 
header is not available then the line does not show up (like the missing 
line when there is no `to:` header)

For me it would be also ok to add this setting with a `defaults write` 
to my mail mate setup

> However, what would be great is if there was a better way to select 
> which headers are in the standard displayed set.

I agree, a generic setting would be nice to define which additional 
headers should be shown in the message view.

On 6 Mar 2024, at 17:56, Bill Cole wrote:

> On 2024-03-06 at 04:21:38 UTC-0500 (Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:21:38 +0100)
> Michael Nietzold <mailmate at lists.freron.com>
> is rumored to have said:
>
>> I have some spam mails which uses the `X-Envelope-to:` header
>
> Can you quantify that? I see none in a corpus of a half-million 
> messages going back to the 90's. But which headers are in your mail is 
> an issue very much dependent on who your mailbox provider is.
>
> The leading "X-" tells you that this is a header that someone thought 
> was nice and invented on their own, and never changed to remove the X. 
> You cannot rely on its presence or consistency unless you know who has 
> decided to put that on some mail. Simply "Envelope-to" also exists on 
> a tiny number of messages in the wild, and "Original-Recipient" is 
> actually standardized 
> (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3798.html#section-2.3.) but is not 
> widespread. Rather more widely implemented is the "X-Original-To" 
> header which is implemented in multiple MTA/MDAs.
>
> My guess is that the "X-Envelope-to" would logically hold the same 
> meaning as those, but who really knows. It only makes sense to add 
> such a header on final delivery or when a MTA modifies a SMTP envelope 
> recipient.
>
>> Some of them are don't have a `to:` header
>
> Technically not wrong if at one time it had a Bcc.
>
>> If I just search in the mail mate search box it not find this emails. 
>> I need explicit use  `X-Envelope-to: myname at mydomain.com` to find it.
>
> MailMate can search on any header, even those that only exist in one 
> message, through the full search bar that you get to with the Search 
> button. If you pull down the menu with header names, you will see 
> "Other..." at the very end. Select that and you will get a full picker 
> that allows you to select any header and optionally include them in 
> the pull-down menu.
>
>> What can I do that the normal search also include the 
>> `X-Envelope-to:` header?
>
> I don't think you can get the simple Search box to search non-standard 
> headers. You can make it search all text and "common" headers, but 
> this one isn't common.
>
>> I would also like to see this header as a line in the mail view.
>
> Not a lot of people would find that useful, given the general rarity 
> of that specific header...
>
> However, what would be great is if there was a better way to select 
> which headers are in the standard displayed set. E.g. I almost always 
> want to know what the Reply-To header is if it exists and there are 
> mailing lists I am on which put the list address in the From header, 
> moving the real From into some other header (often Reply-To) to allow 
> them to add their own DKIM+DMARC authentication. I would like to see 
> MM have a simple way to pick additional headers to show, because which 
> ones are useful can be very site-specific and user-specific.
>
> -- 
> Bill Cole
> bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
> (AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
> Not Currently Available For Hire
> _______________________________________________
> mailmate mailing list
> mailmate at lists.freron.com
> https://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate
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