Reply to Apple Mail Message

Summary: Creates a window in Mailsmith to reply to the current Apple Mail message.
Requires: Mailsmith 1.5, Apple Mail (tested with 10.2.3)
Last Modified: 2019-10-02

Description

I use Apple Mail for my mailing list mail, since it handles large volumes of mail better than Mailsmith. However, Apple Mail’s mail composition interface is terrible, so I wrote this script to let me do my replies in Mailsmith.

Note that if the script addresses the message wrong, you can look in the message’s notes field to find the headers from the original Apple Mail message.

You can run the script from either Mailsmith or Apple Mail. You’ll want to adjust the part of the script that sets the sending account and signature.

Installation Instructions · Download in Compiled Format · Download in Text Format

Script

tell application "Mail"
    set theMessages to the selection
    set m to item 1 of theMessages
    set theHeaders to m's headers
    set theDate to m's date sent
    set theSender to m's sender
    set theSubject to m's subject
    set theBody to m's content
    set theTo to address of m's last to recipient
end tell

tell application "Mailsmith"
    activate
    set theAttribution to "On " & theDate & " " & theSender & " wrote: " & return & return
    
    if theSubject does not start with "Re:" then
        set theSubject to "Re: " & theSubject
    end if
    
    make new message window with properties {subject:theSubject, contents:theBody, sending account:"C-Command", signature:"C-Command"}
    make new cc_recipient at end of message window 1 with properties {address:theSender}
    make new to_recipient at end of message window 1 with properties {address:theTo}
    tell text of message window 1
        replace (ASCII character 10) using return options {starting at top:true}
        increment quote level quote string "> "
    end tell
    
    set text of message window 1 to theAttribution & (text of message window 1)
    set text 2 of message window 1 to theHeaders -- stash headers in Notes field
    
    -- doesn't work; seems to be a bug in Mailsmith
    tell text 2 of message window 1
        replace (ASCII character 10) using return options {starting at top:true}
    end tell
    
    -- force refresh to avoid UI glitch
    set message window 1's show tool bar to false
    set message window 1's show tool bar to true
    
    -- scroll to top
    select insertion point before first character of message window 1
end tell