View From The Road: A Better Way to FW: (Fwd:)

I receive a goodly number of forwarded e-mails. I bet you do also. Mostly we get them from friends and family. Who else is going to bother? It’s a great way to share things of interest. We enjoy getting these but sometimes they are quite messy with a lot of Fw:s, like this:

Subject: Fw: Fwd: Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "xxxxxxxxxxt"
To: xxxx xxxxO.COM>; xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 4:24:58 PM
Subject: Fwd: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "xxxxxxxxxxt"
To: xxxx xxxxO.COM>; xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>
Sent: Mon, February 16, 2010 4:24:58 PM
Subject: Fwd: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "xxxxxxxxxxt"
To: xxxx xxxxO.COM>; xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>
Sent: Mon, February 17, 2010 4:24:58 PM
Subject: Fwd: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "xxxxxxxxxxt"
To: xxxx xxxxO.COM>; xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>xxxx xxxxO.COM>
Sent: Mon, February 18, 2010 4:24:58 PM
Subject: Fwd: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Much of this information is filled in with names and e-mail addresses of people you don’t even know. These people may not know that their names and e-mail addresses are being sent out into cyberspace without their knowledge. Sometimes we have to click through several levels of pages to even get to the message intended to be seen.

If you are at the end of such a sharing chain, you'll quickly see why cleaning up e-mails before forwarding them is essential: messages that have been forwarded multiple times often contain '>' and other quotation characters in all the wrong places, lines are broken in even worse places, and email addresses of people you don't want to know are everywhere.

Cleaning up such a mess can be cumbersome, but keeping an e-mail clean that you forward initially is easy.

First, make sure you're sharing the e-mail, not the addresses in it by removing all addresses from the forwarded message. Here is how to do that:

Hit your forward button, but don’t send yet.
Next, highlight all the extraneous address information and hit “delete.” Like magic, they are gone.

Then, clean up the message itself if it contains unnecessary '>' characters or messed up line breaks. You can do that this way:

You can delete all the unnecessary symbols one at a time, or you can use you systems Find and Replace feature by entering the symbol (like “>”) and replace with a blank space by hitting the space bar. This will replace them all at one time.

o Place any comments you have after or (preferably) before the forwarded message, but try to avoid mixing forwarded text and comments.

Now, you are ready to send just the information you want to forward.

Respect privacy and take care not to share others' e-mail addresses without permission. If you send or forward a mass e-mail, with addresses in the To: ___ or Cc: ___ fields, you are compromising their privacy, and possibly alienating them. If you have the slightest doubt about exposing addresses, put them in the blind carbon copy, or Bcc: ___ field. (Most e-mail clients have a link to the Bcc: behind the To: ___field.) This is especially true if you are doing a mass mailing yourself. So that each recipient will not see the addresses of the others, put all but one of the addresses in the Bcc: ___field.