Why not just have an easy button that you can click saying Do Not Allow Reply All?

I know that there are some ways you can limit reply-all availability, like in the URL linked here. But there’s a note: If recipients open this email in other mail applications except Microsoft Outlook, such as opening on web page via web mailbox, they can reply all this email.

I’m semi-tech savvy but I’m no programmer. It feels like it should be easy to do, so either I’m totally wrong or email services are really missing out on a great thing they could do.

  • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Step 1: draft an email to yourself

    Step 2: put all recipients in the BCC

    Step 3: now “reply all” does jack shit

    • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I use BCC semi-frequently at work because it prevents all kinds of (mostly unintentional) annoyances from my coworkers. Mostly with automated emails related to reports and/or our case management system. BCC is your best friend when used selectively.

  • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The solution is if you’re sending a mass email that shouldn’t be replied to you use BCC. So it’s really the sender’s fault

    Outlook does give a warning now if you’re sending to a distro list

  • Acamon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    As the other commentors have said, this isn’t a problem with email services, it’s a problem with email users. If you put all the addresses in the “To:” or “CC:” boxes, its because you want someone to Reply All. If you want to prevent that, put all the recipients in the BCC box.

    Its a good idea, but fortunately someone already solved it a good while back. Now we just need a PSA to teach people to stop cramming everyone in the wrong box.

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It is slightly the fault of the email clients for the sender that often don’t show BCC by default. It probably would be reasonable for email clients to put a warning up if people are sending to a large number of people without using BCC.

  • fitgse@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    My wife and I were doing big renovations on our home and were dealing with lots of contractors. I would email them and include my wife’s email. Yet every contractor failed to press reply all when responding so my wife was constantly left out of the loop

    It turns out people just don’t care to think about or understand basic technology.

    This stuff really needs to be taught in school (like how we used to have typing and business communication classes)

  • IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    at my last job, someone from corporate sent out a mass email to literally everyone in the company (thousands of people) without using BCC and that chain ended up lasting for weeks before someone higher up eventually said that further reply alls will be punished lmao

  • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I worked for a startup that got bought by Oracle. Five whole years without a reply-all storm, but the first week we had hundreds of people reply all and it was hilarious watching the admins try and fail to convince people to stop replying all.

    • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Wonder what the back end software is there. With Exchange reply-all storms are a thing of the past. I don’t have to convince anyone of anything to stop a reply all storm. Takes 2 minutes of setting up a transport rule. But the admin needs to be experienced enough to know that.

      • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It was Oracle so they probably have a terrible internal email server that will have reply-all storm protection in a year or two.

        I was working with the customer service software devs to migrate my team from Salesforce’s Desk.com (because Oracle hates Salesforce) and they said it would take 18 months to make a dropdown that you could type in and select a macro for a ticket. Eventually they gave up.

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The correct response is to reply all when people start bitching. I can usually throw in an “unsubcribe” request in a separate email.

  • JackLSauce@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    At my work we have something in place that prevents somebody from sending to more than 50 recipients but we control our own mail servers and know how many people are in the largest department

    Basically, things like this exist but aren’t necessarily intuitive to set up and defaults would require contextual knowledge

  • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Is this from that one about that lunch thing where people ignored when told to only reply to that one guy. It gave me a bit of enjoyment this week.