When I Reply to or Forward an Email, Why Isn't the Original Message There?

Email software and webmail interfaces include preferences you can use to specify how to quote the text of an original message when you reply to or forward it. Depending on which options you choose, you may not see the full text of the message you received in your response to it. If you use Mac OS X's Mail app, you can set it up so replies include all, none or only the part of the message content that you select before you click the "Reply" button. Through Microsoft Outlook's settings, you can include, exclude and format the original message in replies, and include and format forwarded messages. The Web-based Yahoo business email interface offers an option that toggles to include all or none of the original message in replies and forwarding. Apple's Mail and Google's Gmail enable you to package all the messages in a set of back-and-forth replies into a chronological conversation forwarded in one message.

In Microsoft Outlook or the Classic version of Yahoo's business webmail interface, you can use either inline text or attachments to represent the text of a message you forward. Inline text appears as a quotation within the body of your forwarded message. When you use attachments, the original content turns into a separate file that appends to your outgoing message. You can alter the general preferences within your mail options to make an overall change to this behavior, and can also select case-by-case options for individual messages. Microsoft Outlook also turns the original content into an attachment when you "Ctrl-click" on more than one item to forward multiple messages simultaneously.

When you reply to or forward an email message and show it as inline content within your message body, you can select, edit, reformat and delete the quoted content. If you select the quotation and press the "Backspace" key, your email software or Web interface deletes anything you highlighted. To avoid accidentally sending out a reply or forwarded message without the original content, watch what you select and which keys you press before you click on the "Send" button to pass on your response.

If you respond to an empty message, your response lacks quoted content because the original message contained nothing quotable. This can happen if you accidentally chose the wrong message for a response while processing your email in a hurry. In a crowded inbox, you can land on the message above or below the one you wanted to select and format a response without noticing the error. These kinds of mistakes point to the need to read through what you send before you send it, even if you think your outgoing message contains nothing more than routine content.