Much to my dismay this script by Paul Berkowitz (Add cc or bcc E) can’t be
called as a Rule for Outgoing mail, at least not as I can see. You have to
manually do the keystrokes to add the bcc address once the Apple Script is
configured. While this is a whole lot better than opening the address
window, typing the start of the bcc address, etc. it doesn’t automate it
as much as I would like. My situation is that when I reply from one of my
accounts (hundreds of emails every day) I need to bcc each of them.
This is an issue that comes up from time to time, Actually there are two issues:
1) So-called “Outgoing” Rules are not actually Outgoing Rules. They are Outgone Rules. The Rule is only applied after the email message has left. The proper name for them should be Sent Mail Rules. So there’s nothing useful here that can be done for what you want – such Rules are only moving the sent messages to other folders, or triggering some other event.
2) Entourage’s applescripting implementation, like OE’s, has a very serious limitation. You can’t alter the recipients of a saved message in any way whatsoever. You can’t remove one, you can’t add one. So the BCC recipient cannot be added after the message is saved in the Outbox and ready to be sent. It has to be done while the message is still a draft window – an open, new unsaved message window.
There is a sort of trick that could be used.: all the information in the saved message could be copied into a new message, with the exception that the BCC recipient be added. Then the new altered message is sent and the original deleted. The trouble with this is that you’d run into two more problems:
3) You can’t actually use the ‘duplicate’ applescript command because you’d then have exactly the same problem as above and couldn’t change the recipients. You have to ‘set’ each item the new message to the same item of the original message – subject, content, etc. (Attachments are complicated but doable.) But when you ‘set’ the content, you lose HTML completely. All messages would become plain text. I’ve complained about this often enough.
4) Even supposing you didn’t mind this, then what? There’s nothing you could do by clicking “Send Now”. You would always have to remember to Send Later. Then another script would have to run from your Send & Receive schedule that could check messages which met certain criteria: the message was to a certain domain, or from a certain account of yours, or something like that, and it could do this make-new-plaintext-message-with-a-BCC-and-delete-original on these messages. You could never pick and choose which messages to apply it to. Or you run a script like that separately on messages sitting in the Outbox. I don’t see how this is any easier than adding the BCC to the message window.
Why not:
1) Add a keyboard command to the Add Cc or BCC script? Just add “ \omB” for option-command-B, for example.
2) Get Reply with BCC E script (which I notice I never posted to my website. I’ll do so later today). It adds the BCC as it opens up the new message window. You use this script (again, adding a keyboard command like “ \cmB” for control-command-B, if you wish) and use it instead of clicking Reply. So it’s only one click.
I don’t really think that the scheme outlined in 4) is a very good idea.
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Paul Berkowitz
