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Mail header not showing all recipients

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I am using Outlook 97/2000 clients to send and receive mail to a Linux Sendmail server. If a person sends a mail to multiple people, only a couple of names are showing in the "to" field (even in the header), but all people are receiving the message. This is a problem because when someone replies to "all", they are not seeing who all the intended recipients are, but yet the message goes to all in the original list that it did not show. Anyone have any ideas?

11 replies

by mike (from canada)

you could:
* reset the outlook configuration by deleting all .ini files related to it
* re-install Outlook
* get a different mail program
* update your system files
* check your disk for errors
* check your system settings
* remove all entries related to outlook from the Windows registry.

I bet one of those things will work.

by curacao_dejavu

1: let them print the email. It will print all recipients.
2: use a distribution list, instead of sending to selecting the recipients; you can create the distribution list for them on the exchange server or they can do it themselves.

3. you can take a look at the MS KB (Article ID: Q163749)

You may want to make the Reply All command unavailable if the reply message that will be sent to an alias with many members. This article describes two methods to accomplish this.

MORE INFORMATION

Method 1
Place the recipient addresses on the "Bcc:" line rather than the "To:" line. If a recipient chooses Reply To All, only you, the Sender, will receive the reply. To access the "Bcc:" line, click Bcc Field on the View menu.
Method 2To design a new message form that does not provide the Reply All command, follow these steps:
Open a new mail message.

On the Tools menu in the new message, click Design Outlook Form.

Click the (Actions) tab.

Double-click the Reply To All line.

In the Form Action Properties dialog box, click to clear the Enabled check box, and then click OK.

On the File menu, click Publish Form As.

In the Form Name field, type a name for your new form.

Click Publish In, move to your Inbox, click OK, and then click Publish.

Close the form without saving.

To use your new form, click the Compose menu and click your new form name from the bottom area of the list. Those receiving your message will not havea Reply All button

Hope this gives you some alterntives.

Leopold

ps.

I am using outlook 2000, and I am not able to duplicate this.

by curacao_dejavu

quick note: what service pack level are you using ? The latest office 2000 service pack level is 2 right now. Office 97 has also sp 2.

Else try a unistalling en install the outlook 2000 again.

by ryanh

1. On all machines (Office 97 and 2000), if you print the message, it does not print all recipients.

2. Not running an Exchange Server, using Sendmail v8.11.0 on RH Linux. If I was to create distribution lists, the problem would still arise whenthey tried to sent to multiple lists, but it would just go to more people without them knowing.

3. As a last resort I could build a form that does not let them reply to all, but that does not solve the problem that I have, as they could just keepadding all the names back in.

All service packs are up to date on all machines. I have un-installed and re-installed, going through all available options (that I could find) and still cannot see anything. That's why it's leading me to believe that it's something in the Sendmail configuration.

by stillatit

unix sendmail allows the use of aliases. (This is similar to a distribution list in Exchange Server.)

For example, I can set up an alias of "marketing" and have that alias expand to any number of actual recipients. If I send mail to marketing@mydomain.com, sendmail expands the alias, and sends an individual copy of the message to everyone named by the alias, but only marketing@mydomain.com shows up in the To: field (or CC: field). When the user does a reply to all, the mail goes to marketing@mydomain.com, and sendmail again expands the list.

This is very often done because a company needs multiple people to cover incoming mail to a particular address (such as to "sales"), but does not want to publish the individual identities of the people involved.

Your choices are:
a) Don't use aliases.
b) Send the people involved a list of who is in which alias group every so often. (This is typically the file /etc/aliases or /etc/sendmail/aliases.)

Blocking reply-to-all will not work. If the user sends to the alias, it will always be expanded.

Good luck.

by ryanh

But the problem still arises if you want to sent to multiple groups (say a mail was sent to engineering@abc.com, sales@abc.com and service@xyz.com - users would not be able to see that "service@xyz.com" was included). This becomes messy when someone replies (unknowingly) with information that people @xyz.com were not meant to see. Is there a setting for header length/restriction/? in sendmail.cf, or am I way off?

by stillatit

Not a lot you can do, since sendmail believes what it is told. If the sender of a message or a reply puts an alias address in the To field, sendmail believes that delivery should be to that alias.

The only thing you can really do is when requesting information that should only go to a specific person is to advise the requestor (original sender) to put in a warning "Please respond to only!" and/or to include group addresses only in the BCC field so that reply to all will not find the groups. Even a reply-to field will not block a reply to all.

Good luck.

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