How to copy the recipient address into the reply-to field automatically when replying to email in Thunderbird

Problem:

I've been using a CATCHALL alias on my domains for quite some time. And up until now, I've had to type the email-address which I want the recipient to respond to, manually, in thunderbird.

Workflow: For the purpose of this question, I will use the fictional domain earth.io.

I have configured my email server to drop any emails sent to any address on the domain earth.io to [email protected] the CATCHALL, so if you send an email to [email protected], it will arrive in [email protected].

Now, in the past I've handed out unregistered email-addresses like [email protected] to people and businesses I want to keep in touch with. For example, I gave Noah Bennett the address [email protected], and I gave Hiro Nakamura the address [email protected]. I do this so I can distinguish them from the crowd and also keep track of who and what has obtained these addresses - and potentially, to sort out those who sent me something worth reading.

The same goes for businesses and services, my social network accounts are registered using [email protected], [email protected] and so on.

If emails are sent to the addresses mentioned, they end up in the inbox of [email protected].

My reply from address is [email protected], I use this to write to people, complain about products and so on. I also use it to reply to those emails sent to my [email protected] address.

Note: The address [email protected] is an registered email account, similar to the [email protected] one, only difference is that it isn't used as CATCHALL address.

So, in Thunderbird, if I recieve an email from Hiro Nakamura, I will click reply, then change the reply to field to [email protected] type my reply and send it back to the recepient - now in the hopes that when they reply, they do so to the reply to address.

Question:

How can I have thunderbird copy the to address to the reply to field? Or somehow do it in an other way?

I've looked around here on superuser, but haven't found any answers to this issue. There is this question but the answer is not what I am looking for.

Solution 1:

I don't think that such a solution exists any longer.

There were a handful of extensions written for that, such as Virtual Identity and Reply As Original Recipient, but they are all now incompatible with Thunderbird 68. Their source code is still available if this interests you: absorb-it/Virtual-Identity and qiqitori/reply_as_original_recipient.

I tested the above extensions, and the old trick of increasing maxVersion in the installation file install.rdf is no longer enough, the extension stays incompatible with Thunderbird 68.

An easier solution is to use a web service that creates aliases, such as e4ward for creating temporary or permanent addresses and to avoid having a long list of identities. E4ward allocates aliases, which look like [email protected]. I give out these aliases, and E4ward forwards emails sent to them to my real email address, but with a tricked return address that I can use to respond such that my answer would seem to come from the alias.

The advantages of this method are :

Avoids spam for which catch-all is very vulnerable. An address that leaks and starts being spammed can be deleted and replaced.
Everything is automatic. The From and Reply-to are automatically the same, so no possibility of the user wrongly replying to the wrong address.
Flexibility for email changes: If ever mydomain.tld is changed to newdomain.tld, then all identities must change and all users must be notified and can no longer Reply to existing conversations. With web-aliases like E4ward, a small change on the E4ward website is enough, and the change is seamless from the client's point of view.