phplistphpmailermailingmailman

Mailing list replies to go only to the sender, except when reply-all is used


I am working on a PHP based mailing list using PHPmailer.

Currently I have implemented two options for answers to mailing list posts: reply to sender only Vs reply to list. This basically controls which address is inserted in the Reply-To field.

I want to create the behaviour which my users know from Mailman, here an example:

SenderA posts a message:

From: senderA@foo.bar

To: list@foo.bar

The mailing list forwards it to all recipients, e.g. here to RecipientA:

From: senderA@foo.bar

To: recipientA@foo.bar

CC: list@foo.bar

Now RecipientA replies to the post and the reply looks like that:

From: recipientA@foo.bar

To: senderA@foo.bar

The other option RecipientA has is posting the reply to the whole mailing by choosing "reply to all" in the mail client which looks like that in the reply:

From: recipientA@foo.bar

To: senderA@foo.bar

CC: list@foo.bar

When I would decide to set the mailing list's address in the CC field for all forwarded mails:

Or:


Solution

  • I figured it out - most email clients will treat replying to mailing list emails as desired when the following conditions are met for the outgoing mailing list emails:

    This is slightly different from the Mailman approach but it works very well and you can be sure that your server does not have to deal with unwanted duplicates