[MlMt] format=flowed with long lines?

[Randall Gellens]

On 7 May 2026, at 13:35, froup wrote:

> On 7 May 2026, at 10:15, Randall Gellens wrote:
>
>> On 3 May 2026, at 14:00, froup via mailmate wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I recently discovered [this 
>>> article](https://vxlabs.com/2019/08/25/format-flowed-with-long-lines/), 
>>> which suggests using `format=flowed` with a maximum line length of 
>>> 998.
>>>
>>> Doing this allows clients that support `format=flowed` to reflow the 
>>> long lines while also making bad clients such as Outlook to 
>>> dynamically wrap the whole long line at frame boundary to avoid them 
>>> interpreting soft line breaks as hard line breaks (since there 
>>> won’t be any soft or hard line breaks unless your paragraph is 
>>> longer than 998 characters).
>>>
>>> I’m still using `format=flowed`, and would like to practice this 
>>> advice with MailMate. However, I don’t know how to make MailMate 
>>> wrap the _raw_ message at 998 characters, or is that even possible. 
>>> I tried setting `View > Soft Wrap Column` to 998 but that does not 
>>> affect the _raw_ message sent over SMTP.
>>>
>>> I’d appreciate any help on this.
>>
>> The idea of Format=Flowed is that, by soft-wrapping messages at below 
>> 80 characters, the message can be treated as non-F=F by clients that 
>> don't understand F=F.
>>
>> --Randall
>
> Hi Randall,
>
> Yes, that is exactly the problem. For example, Outlook would interpret 
> these soft wraps as hard wraps and causes lines to break at, say, 80 
> characters, which looks very poor (especially on mobile devices).
>
> What I want is to insert soft wraps only when line length exceeds SMTP 
> limit (998 characters), so a not-so-long paragraph (like this one) 
> appears as a whole line in the raw message. Since there is no line 
> breaks anymore in these paragraphs, even a bad client like Outlook can 
> just break lines at the frame boundary dynamically like how it treats 
> non f=f messages, leading to a more natural looking.
>
> Meanwhile, a decent client such as MailMate capable of handling f=f 
> can just reflow the lines according to user’s preference, since the 
> message is still f=f. For instance, maybe someone using a terminal 
> mail client want to always wrap lines at 80 characters, and their f=f 
> capable client can reflow my message like that even if the raw message 
> contains only very long lines.
>
> In short, people using decent clients see my message as good as 
> always, while people using Outlook don’t ask me again “why your 
> email looks weird?” Citing from the article I cited in the 
> beginning: “your plaintext email will be reflowed by a much larger 
> group of recipients and therefore appear substantially less terrible 
> on their displays.”

The Format=Flowed RFCs discuss the issue of mobile devices and small 
screens; it's one of the main reasons for F=F. I suppose soft-breaking 
at 998 is a lot less bad in today's world than back when F=F was 
created. I don't know if MailMate has a hidden preference for where to 
soft-wrap F=F. I added Benny to the Bcc list.

--Randall
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