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Old 15 May 2020, 11:35 AM   #1
Grhm
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Ad-hoc sending identities when composing

Re http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=73905

The way ad-hoc sending identities works has changed today for me on the web interface, and not for the better...
Previously if you selected a wildcard sending identity when composing a message, you could edit the 'from' address in the e-mail to be anything you chose.
Now, suddenly, you are only permitted to edit the part before the '@'.
If you want to specify anything after the '@', you now have to set up a separate sending identity for each and every variation.
This is incredibly inconvenient for me, as I use a different subdomain of my personal domain for each contact or purpose.
I maintain a list of addresses I have used or given out, which currently includes well over 600 different subdomains.
It is insanely impractical for me to set up a separate 'sending identity' for every single one of those addresses!
I have raised a support ticket about this and I'll let you know what they say.
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Old 15 May 2020, 07:47 PM   #2
JeremyNicoll
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It sounds as if they need to support another form of wildcard identity like

*@*.yourpersonaldomain

and (obviously) it would be best if they also checked that "yourpersonaldomain" is actually yours. Such a check would be easy if it's hosted by them, but may be a bit trickier if it's not.
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Old 16 May 2020, 12:40 AM   #3
SideshowBob
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Note also this thread. If your domain isn't hosted locally or you try to work around the webmail identity problem by using a mail client, it will probably apply.
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Old 16 May 2020, 04:05 AM   #4
Grhm
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Just received:
Quote:
Thanks for contacting Fastmail support!

You are correct that we no longer offer the option of editing the domain portion of your email address from the compose screen, and I'm sorry to hear that this has caused some interruption to your workflow. I can imagine how that would be frustrating.

You can add a wildcard address for any of the subdomains that you use through the Settings → Sending Identities <https://www.fastmail.com/settings/identities> screen. That way, they will always show up in the "from" dropdown list.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
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Old 16 May 2020, 06:33 AM   #5
Grhm
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...My reply:
Quote:
Thank you very much for the swift reply.

You say "we no longer offer the option of editing the domain portion of your email address from the compose screen".

That's fine by me.

I have no problem with that change, and I fully accept that you have good reasons for implementing it.

If that was the only change you had made, it wouldn't have inconvenienced me at all.

But you have also prevented me from editing the _subdomain_ portion of my address.

To say that has caused "some interruption to my workflow" is a gross understatement!

As I said, I have more than 600 different subdomains in use, so your suggested workaround - to add a separate sending identity for each subdomain - is insanely impractical.

Even if I had the time and patience to set up each one as a separate identity, a drop-down list of 600 identities would be a nightmare. It would be a positive hindrance to my workflow rather than a help!

I repeat that I have no need or desire to edit the domain portion of my address, and I fully accept your reasons for restricting the ability to do that.

But I can think of no reason to restrict a user's ability to edit the subdomain part of their own e-mail address.

I have tried setting up *@*.[mydomain].[tld] as a sending identity, but it is not accepted.

Not taking account of subdomains when implementing this change appears to be an oversight on the part of your developers.

Please raise it with them.

I'm sure I can't be the only person affected by this.

Many thanks,

Graham

Last edited by Grhm : 16 May 2020 at 03:18 PM. Reason: Minor typos
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Old 16 May 2020, 09:32 AM   #6
hadaso
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You are not the only one affected by this.
And calling this "some interruption to your workflow" is an understatement.


I use addresses created at different subdomains of my own domains on the fly. I have filtering rules relying on this way of using my domains for email. Just a few months ago I spent several days replacing all the addresses I had registered with different services for the past 18 years or so with addresses at different subdomains of my domain.this relied on being able to use all my subdomains and not just a few of them.



A main reason I use Fastmail is that usually they do not limit the users on usage of it is ours: they claim our data is ours. Well, my domains, including all subdomains and all email addresses in all subdomains are my data, and I use this data to control my communications with others.
This unannounced change puts a limit on the number of subdomains I can use. Technically it limits me to 500 subdomains in all my domains, (for sending, including replying) since this is the limit on the number of identities. Practically it's impossible to work with a drop-down list of hundreds of identities, and it's not practical to make a new identity or edit an identity each time I need to reply a mail from a subdomain I rarely use (and the identities screen doesn't allow creating a new identity based on an existing one. You have to create every identity form scratch).


This is a major change. It changes FastMail's policy from enabling users from using all the address space in their domains to using only a small fragment of this address space. It deviates from their general announced policy that what's ours is ours (or perhaps this applies only to the content of our messages and not to our means of identifying ourselves using our own address space). And it was implemented without any announcement. I wouldn't have known about this it it wasn't for this thread, until the time I would try to reply an email and find out I cannot do this the way it's supposed to be done. And adapting to this change is not a small thing: it means I have to rethink the way I use my subdomains to limit myself to only very few of them, and redo all my filtering (several hundred lines of Sieve code). I don't currently have the time to do this, nor do i think i have to limit myself to using only a few subdomains. i know many people get along with just one email address, but it doesn't mean I have to.
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Old 16 May 2020, 09:55 AM   #7
Grhm
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It's infuriating, isn't it?
Have you raised a support ticket?
If not, I urge you to do so.
Fastmail need to be made aware that this is a serious problem they have created, which needs to be fixed quickly rather than glossed over with empty platitudes.
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Old 16 May 2020, 10:32 AM   #8
Grhm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hadaso View Post
...it's not practical to make a new identity or edit an identity each time I need to reply a mail from a subdomain I rarely use...
It would really help a lot if Fastmail were to fix the option in settings for "replies always to be sent from the address the mail was sent to", so that it actually does what it says. Currently it only works if the address the mail was sent to has previously been set up as a sending identity.
(I brought this up before, here: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...5&postcount=21 - see point ★3.)
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Old 16 May 2020, 10:35 AM   #9
hadaso
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grhm View Post
It's infuriating, isn't it?
Have you raised a support ticket?
If not, I urge you to do so.
Fastmail need to be made aware that this is a serious problem they have created, which needs to be fixed quickly rather than glossed over with empty platitudes.
I have raised a support ticket now.
I asked to undo the change until there's a reasonable replacement (like an identity that allows editing localpart+subdomain, or at least creating a new identity from within the compose screen, based on an existing identity, without leaving the composed message, or, in the compose screen of a reply or forwarded message, adding the address that the message was sent to (X-delivered-to header) the identities drop-down.
I also asked that in the future changes that limit the way we can use email and may require changing our usage screen would be announced well in advance.
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Old 16 May 2020, 11:10 AM   #10
Grhm
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Excellent !
I look forward to hearing how they respond to you.
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Old 18 May 2020, 05:59 AM   #11
Grhm
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Another response:
Quote:
Thanks for your response.
We certainly see how this could be an issue for users with a large number of subdomains.
We have raised this issue internally with our developers, and I'll get back to you as soon as I hear back from them.
Sounds promising...
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Old 12 Jun 2020, 07:34 AM   #12
hadaso
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Relationships have ups and down, but sometimes something happens that reminds you why you fell in love in the first place.


Today I received an email that asked for a reply (said that i won some prize and should reply with my details to receive it). It was sent to an email address of the form my1stname@organization.mydomain.tld. So I was ready to reply with my details and get it done with but then I realized I'd have to create an identity for the subdomain before I can get rid of the email, so I I just set it to "unread" state for when I have time and patience for this. Then later I came back to it and hit reply, and what a surprise! The "From" field was populated with the address used to receive the email. This hasn't happened to me with these kind of addresses for many many years! (perhaps never before). The name, localpart and subdomain each had a separate box around it, so I clicked them to see what happens, and sure enough, they are all editable! So I could reply the email right away and get it done with.


A little more research into it: I click Compose and then select a *@domain identity. The name is an editable box populated with my name (defined in the identity). The localpart is an empty editable box that I have to type something into. The domain is also in a box that looks editable, but is only partially editable: clicking on it moves the domain to the right and creates an editable box where a subdomain can be typed. So it allows using any email address in the domain and all its subdomains, but not an email address from another domain. I think I can live with that (I haven't tried but perhaps it is possible to actually change the domain using the browser's "inspect element" facility. I use it sometime to edit the source of the email text if I need something that's not available in the interface, like sub-subscripts).


So I'm quite happy today: the issue discussed here seems to be resolved. Replying to emails with custom subdomains became much more streamlined: previously I had to remember before hitting reply to copy the email address i want to use for the reply, so I can paste it into the "From" field after choosing an editable identity. Now it just opens the Compose screen with the right address populating the From field. Another little issue was resolved here; Previously when choosing an editable identity the localpart was populated with the localpart from the previous identity used, which is often not the localpart I want. Several times I forgot to edit it before hitting "send". Now it opens with an empty localpart so something must be typed to make it valid. To me it's an improvement.


So right now I'm happy, until the next issue (that's the way marriage works...) Now I would be even happier if a little action is added to the Compose screen to switch from "reply" to "reply all", because ever so often I click "reply" and only then realize I actually wanted to "reply all" (or some). I guess I'm not the only one with this little problem.
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Old 12 Jun 2020, 09:03 AM   #13
Grhm
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Smile

YAY !!!
You are absolutely right !
The behaviour you describe is for the desktop interface; the implementation on the mobile interface, which I use mostly, is different, but just as slick.
Thank you, Fastmail !
This old cynic is also in love again !
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Old 12 Jun 2020, 08:03 PM   #14
ewal
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This is not working for me properly.

Using the web interface I hit reply to a message sent to.

localpart@subdomain.domain.com

I can edit the localpart field, however I can't edit the subdomain.domain.com fields. Rather a new blank editable field opens up with the subdomain.domain.com fields being concatenated to the new blank field. This results in a From address of:

localpart@subdomain.domain.com.subdomain.domain.com

which of course is nonsense.
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Old 12 Jun 2020, 10:53 PM   #15
hadaso
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ewal View Post
This is not working for me properly.

Using the web interface I hit reply to a message sent to.

localpart@subdomain.domain.com

I can edit the localpart field, however I can't edit the subdomain.domain.com fields. Rather a new blank editable field opens up with the subdomain.domain.com fields being concatenated to the new blank field. This results in a From address of:

localpart@subdomain.domain.com.subdomain.domain.com

which of course is nonsense.
This doesn't happen to me. It might be browser dependent, so I guess it should be reported with the details of the browser used.


I also tried it on the phone (Samsung Galaxy) and there the whole address is editable, but if I change the domain I get an error message when I try to send saying that the domain must match the domain in the identity.
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