I always just hit reply. It doesn't matter if it is an e-mail, text, or messaging on Facebook???? Maybe she should just call you.

I hit Reply, so my email message is above the email I received from a friend, and that way we both know what we were emailing about. LOL If I start a "new" email and my friend hits Reply, then I see what I wrote to her and what she is answering back to me. I LIKE it that way.

Why on earth would she do that? 5 back and forths later I'd have no idea what we were talking about.

I don't know if it is right or wrong, but I much prefer not to see my email I have just sent someone. If I need to know what I wrote I can easily go to my sent box. I don't send people emails they have sent me, I start a nice new one. Perhaps some people's emails take a while to load, especially with dial up.

Sue

I agree with everything written in response so far.

in a business atmosphere it is inappropropriate to remove anything from the string of email responses. One might redact something personal in only extreme cases but it would be rare.

Your friend seems to be over-reacting. There is an option to set up your email to respond without showing the original email.

I email with a friend regularly and we always keep the entire conversation. It’s preferred so we can refer back to it.

That said, other than acknowledging and/or replying to an email, I don’t think there is any “standard” when it comes to the history of it.

How is that impolite? Sure it may be her preference, but it seems like a petty gripe. And as OutsidePlaying pointed out - in a business environment it is inappropriate particularly considering that email is considered records that could be subject to record retention.

I prefer to have the original in-line, so I don't have to find it in my inbox. I can see if you were forwarding it on to others, you might delete any extraneous chatter. I recently forwarded a cute picture to a friend, on the end of an email thread. She thought the picture was cute, and forwarded it to a number of people, with our entire original conversation attached. I was a bit irked, but she isn't very techie, and the friends (and conversation) are harmless.

You're right, she's wrong.

Agree.

The only time I remove the previous email(s) is if the string is getting really long. Like 3 or 4 generations, or if there are photos. And that's my personal preference. Not due to any unwritten or written "email etiquette" guidelines.

My father learned how to email and use the internet when he was about 80. I purchased the computer and software for him, tried to teach him. He purchased a couple of “Dummies” books and took a couple of classes at the senior center.

He did not use the reply key for email. He would compose a new email. Either someone taught him to reply that way, or he figured it out on his own. I tried to show him how to use the reply button, but he never used it. He learned his way and didn’t want to change, and I was happy he was using email. FWIW, he used to email a sister in law (my aunt), after he passed, I looked at his unanswered emails, she also did not use the reply button, but always crafting a new email.

I've never heard that before.

Personally, I like to have the string of correspondence so I can
refer back to see what all is being discussed. I don't always remember
every detail.

Your friend would have been more polite had she simply requested
that, in the future, you delete her original email when you reply
because that is her preference rather than telling you that you were
being impolite.

Totally agree. It may be her preference, but it is not impolite.

I in general use the reply button and keep the conversation in line intact. I know of no etiquette rule as she stayed. Lol ask her for a link to her etiquette guide.

I think your friend is straight up wrong. I've been "doing" email since the days of Bitnet when to reach a distant location you might have to explicitly specify all of the intervening servers through which the mail message would need to travel to reach its destination. What you did is by far the common accepted way of conducting an e-mail conversation.

Had someone said that to me in that way I likely would have responded:

Since you feel that it is impolite to include your original response in my reply to you, perhaps your should forestall the possibility of my doing that by simply not sending me the original message in the first place. Problem solved. Have a nice day.

My only problem with hitting reply is that sometimes the thread gets too long and is still titled 'About the dog', when we are off and discussing what the cat did, so scanning inbox can get confusing.

Maybe your friend was having a hard day and had to lash out at something. That happens to me from time-to-time, though I tend to keep that kind of lovely behavior for my family and not share with friends or colleagues.

Hmmm -- I wrote a long reply to thank you all for feedback and somehow it hasn't appeared. Is it the universe speaking to me? Halloween in the air.

I too have been doing email since 1995 and never heard this 'rule'. I'm used to hearing my friend's opinions on the oddest things but I don't think she even realises how offensive her reprimand is. I feel soothed by the responses that say "You are right." and nothing wrong with the others either. It's entertaining after all and in this forum, not personal.

I always start a new subject line when the topic changes. I usually delete photos and attachments that aren't necessary. I don't forward emails that show other people's addresses. And I'm so careful about 'Reply All" Danger lurks. !!!

Yay Bob, love your response! Since you feel that it is impolite to include your original response in my reply to you, perhaps your should forestall the possibility of my doing that by simply not sending me the original message in the first place. Problem solved. Have a nice day.

Bleu, I think I'd just ignore your friend. End of story. You are not impolite, that's just ridiculous.

What kind of friend would aggravate you like that?

I don't understand what your friend means by "send back an email that someone has sent to you." If you hit "reply," it AUTOMATICALLY copies the original email back to the sender, along with your reply. You are not "sending it back." It's automatic.

Now, if you were "forwarding" her email back to her, then I would consider that to be sending back her email.

I think your friend is nuttier than a fruitcake. Or she doesn't understand how email works.

I've never heard that before. I just hit reply or "reply all" if it's an email about a book club meeting or for organizing a run.

I would not delete the email but merely start a new one if she is so aggravated.

Wow if you now have to be PC erasing stuff, I might just give up and live alone in a deserted island where I can’t offend ANYBODY

I wouldn't be able to remember the conversation either. But after awhile, one of us will usually start a new message.

You are right.

I have never heard what she is saying. I wonder where she got that idea. In the days of written correspondence you would not send the original letter back to the sender, but this is email.

When I had a proper ISP, and was engaged in a long back and forth set of replies, I would leave the most recent reply and trim off all the earlier ones.

Presently, I trim only occasionally due to the unwieldy software my ISP is using. They are treating emails like conversations and make it very difficult to cut selected portions.

No pretty much never. I just hit reply. The one friend and I get some insane threads going..I have one friend who shares and email with her husband. She INSISTS hers to be be deleted before I reply and I respect her wishes.

There are any number of online websites that outline proper/suggested email etiquette and in none of them does it suggest you delete the original message before responding!! That's pretty much unheard of! If carrying on a long email discussion with a friend (not work-related), I might delete the oldest stuff and if there has been a gap in time (like more than a week), I will start a new discussion with a different title. But deleting the original message for a simple response? Never!

Your friend is off base, and I would be sure, now, to keep her emails on hand - just in case.

Like someone said, if it gets long and annoying I may select all and delete, but it's just personal preference...I usually just hit 'reply' :)

Weird. I've never thought about it. I do it both ways depending on the person and situation.

If it's just brief info going back and forth, I just reply and don't delete the previous email.

Then, for example, there is my mother who takes all forms of correspondence VERY seriously. With her, I erase her email as I go- the reason being that I respond to what she has said, and then remove a section from the reply window for my own sake of organization. With very long winded emails, I also find that removing it just keeps it looking cleaner, but it really doesn't matter.

Having the text being answered embedded or not in an email is a setting on one's profile, and therefore, a preference. Not an etiquette issue.

;)

Your friend is wrong. I always hit reply when I answer emails from my friends. The only time I start a new one is when the thread gets too long and gets slow. I reread emails when I reply. How else am I going to remember what was discussed?

If the back and forths get lengthy, I delete the chain. Otherwise, who knows when one wants a reference? If I get sent photos, I reply and delete the photos but leave the conversational context. Otherwise I'm apt to be "re-inventing the wheel" conversationally-speaking.

Write her back and tell her you'll be happy to comply with her request regarding correspondence with her, but apparently it doesn't violate any laws of ettiquette. But that you do desire to keep your friend, and this friendship, happy. (Um, word this better...)

Never heard of that, but usually start a new topic when the back and forth gets too long.

Jim Mat, I think most of the people who every time start new are from us older bunch who learned to write letters with pencil and pen, switched to typewriters and then to computers. For most of our lives we would have had to copy and copy and... Of course there were also the round-robin letters, most likely within a big family.

I've never heard of erasing first before replying. Do you think she meant emailing her off an old email or something?

I guess it is what you prefer and I prefer a new email, not mine coming back to me one maybe I wrote you a week ago. I don't reply to people, they get a new email.

Sue

Your friend is loony.

I haven't had a personal e-mail in a year? Longer? My e-mails are notifications when I order something, getting a delivery, or a dentist appointment. Oh, and bills!

Sherry_7bAL, I get emails from my sister, my brother, and my BF, all the time. But I LIVE in email hell at work. All day long.

bleus: how old is your friend?

I'm a hermit, I prefer email communication over all else (or at least electronic), I regard voice calls as 'attend me now' interruptions. Lol, maybe that is like the person who wants a fresh email vs a trail, dunno. Can we say ideosyncracies? sure we can :)

always1stepbehind
I wasn't mailing off an old email -- it was an exchange of a few emails over a 36 hour period on the SAME topic
We are both over 60 but she's been using email for at least 15 years and has a Blackberry which she uses expertly

Artemis_ma, Marilyn_Sue and all --
As soon as she asked me not to send back emails I agreed, thinking it was a problem of too much to look at on a little screen. THEN she wrote me that the problem was that it is impolite to send an email back.
I replied as I said above -- that it is the standard and I added "but you can deviate." I don't think the friendship is damaged but I see a minor chink there.

And yes, Lynn Wheeler, I am too polite to say that she is impolite -- why would I want to challenge on such a small issue? Needless to say she has good qualities but nitpicking is wearing as you can guess.

Chess -- ha ha --

Thanks everybody

I never erase the email. I only erase email addresses from an email that I'm going to forward to someone else. Otherwise, the original email stays attached, so the sender can see what I'm replying to.

I not only return the email, I insert replies within it in different color text, like a real conversation. Then I add my own letter as well, at the top. Only do this with one particular friend I've corresponded with since long before email existed.

I'd ask her "how exactly is that 'impolite'?" That's bizarre! Why is it then, that when you click the "reply" button, your conversation is automatically included at the bottom? The only time I will not include my last email is when it begins to get way too long, I will have to physically go and delete the older ones. I will always leave the last one so that the person I'm writing to will have it as a reference.

If she doesn't want to see conversations in her emails, tell her to turn them off and set to message view. It's her problem, not yours, unless you are her IT person responsible for maintaining her computer and all her website settings.

Bluersblue, she should use vapormail in that case. She sounds crusty and cranky. Just respond with a long concatenated email that includes every note she's ever sent you. Explain that you don't have time time to delete or trim her previous missives, so you're sending them to her to remove.

Or, you could ask her is she was only referring to the email in which she confessed to shoplifting.

What a cool word=concatenated. I word I've never heard of before today. Thank you petalique

I'd send her an email with questions about 8-10 different things. Then, since she won't include your email back to you, she'll be forced to type out descriptive answers to every question to avoid confusion. Heh.

Sorry FlamingO but that doesn't work. They'll just answer "Yes No Maybe How? Where? When I'm allergic to it"

As far as the original question, your friend is out to lunch.

My GF has bellyached about me having my computer set to quote emails. She too does the send a comment without saying what it's about and that annoys me. Plus she's one of these who puts the email in the subject and/or starts a sentence in the subject then puts the rest of the sentence in the body. ARGH! When she does some of these things I refuse to waste my time looking up sent emails and I just reply (with quote of course) and say I have no idea what you're talking about.

If something is a totally different subject, I'll often clear the body and change the subject. I still hit Reply rather than go through the headache of opening up a new mail and inserting the addressee.

Come to think of it, back in the snail mail days, a vendor of mine had a unique procedure. When they received something they included a note that said something like Your message is being responded to in this informal way since we feel a prompt response is more important than a formal written letter. Please include this note and any attachments (or copies thereof) in your response when replying. And if you didn't include it, they didn't know what the history was. Saves them a lot of filing and I thought it was brilliant. I used a similar method quite a bit in my correspondence, though I usually would make copies.