On 14/01/2025 07:53, Andy Smith wrote:
On Tue, Jan 14, 2025 at 12:41:17AM +0000, Alain D D Williams wrote:
It is not just the Subject: but also the In-Reply-To: and References: headers.
A good MUA (mail reader) will use these to deduce what is in reply to what and
have the ability to show an email 'thread'. I use mutt which does this.
Most people do not use a good MUA. The email interfaces of the top three
mailbox providers split threads when the subject line changes, a
misfeature I was shocked to learn about having never used any of them.
There are several strategies to build and split threads. Many users
click "reply to" when "compose mail to" should be used. So a thread
broken on subject change is a workaround implemented in some MUA.
The actual issue is that e.g. gmail does not give users any control.
When composing a message, it clears References and In-Reply-To and does
not allow to add them back. I am less sure for received messages (I
rarely use web UI), likely it splits "conversations" on subject change.
It may be convenient for excessively long thread with several unrelated
part. Ideally threads should not be split in cases like adding "solved".
