Forwarding Emails
You might receive an email that looks something like the example on the right.
It may have a longer list of email addresses to which it has already been sent, or even more than one list.
Ever receive emails with “greater-than” signs or vertical lines along the left side? If not, you have probably just barely started using email. These signs, called “quote level”. are used in email replies to indicate that part of the content was quoted from a previous email. This is handy when you receive a reply from someone and can’t remember what you asked in the first place. If you respond to a reply and quote the text in the email, the “quote level” increases.
In a Forwarded email, this can be annoying if the email has been forwarded three or four times (and sometimes even more). Most likely you have seen emails that have three or four signs in front of each line of text. i.e. “>>>>” or “|||” . A lot of email applications, use the “greater-than” sign. Apple’s Mail, uses a colored vertical line. The line takes on the look of a solid line. (See the example below.)
To make it worse, if you forward the email, an extra level is added. What to do? For one, you can do nothing and just send it on with the added lines. You can also change email preferences in Mail for responding so that you don’t add one more level to the list, making it harder to read yet. Click here and check step #4.
If you want to clean it up before you send it, here are some things you can do.
4 - To clean up the “greater-than” symbols, we will use the “Find & Replace” feature. Press the “command” and “F” keys. A small window opens.
5c - Now click the “Replace All” button. All the “greater-than” symbols in the email will be gone. Note: If there was one used in the body of the email, it will be gone as well.
5a - Move your pointer over the space beside “Find”, and type the ”>” symbol. Leave the “Replace” line blank, and be sure the radio button “Entire Message” is on. (5b)
2 - Be courteous, if you are forwarding to more than one person, leave the “To” line blank, and put the email addresses in the “Bcc” line (Blind Carbon Copy). This way only the recipient’s address shows up in their copy of the email.
2a - If the “Bcc” line does not show, click on the square, then click on “Bcc Address Field” to select it.
Tip: If you think you might hit the send button by mistake, leave the address bar blank until you finish cleaning up the email.
1 - Before you click “Forward”, highlight the portion of the email that you want to forward.
Yours may have a lot more blank lines in it, and more advertising at the bottom.
1a - Place your pointer at one corner (I used the top left) of the area you want to keep. Press down and drag the pointer to the diagonal corner,
1b - then release. The area will be highlighted.
1c - Now Click “Forward”.
Note: If the email is long, and you cannot get to end of it in the preview window, double-click the email to open it in a separate window. If the email is still too long, click and hold as in (1a) then drag your pointer down to the bottom edge of the email window, and the email should move until you can capture the rest. Having problems with this? Check it out on the short video below.
3 - Next, clean up the subject line, take out unnecessary words. In our example, the word “subject” is not needed. Sometimes we receive emails with Fwd repeated several times in the subject line. Time to delete them.
6 - Sometimes a box will appear around the text after deleting the symbols. Click outside the box to hide it.
7 - Now let’s remove Mail’s quote levels.
8a - Next. click on “Format” to see the drop down menu.
8b - Click on “Quote Level”,
8c - then click on “Decrease”.
7a - First, we highlight the text. Click “Edit”,
7b - then click “Select All”.
Do this for each level of quote lines.
This brings the email down to just one quote level. If you don’t want this one either, you will have to change it in preferences for Composing email. Click here for steps.
