# A question concerning emails and forwards

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 9, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526 "2002-10-09T13:45:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Deadly\_Nightlight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Deadly\_Nightlight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deadly_Nightlight)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526/1 "2002-10-09T13:45:15Z")

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Whenever I want to send a forward there are always these  
\>\>\>\>  
\>\>\>\>\>  
\>\>\>\>  
\>\>\>\>\>  
\>\>\>\>\>\>

Is there anyway to get rid of them aside of going line by line and erasing them? Someone told me about a program to erase them for you but it costs 50$. Is there a simpler way to deal with this?  
Thanks

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**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526/2 "2002-10-09T14:05:18Z")

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Does your e-mail program have a “search and replace” feature when you compose a message?

By the way, messages that I’ve seen that have been forwarded that many times are usually not worth sending - either urban legends or “vote to keep the pledge” kind of things. You sure you want to?

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**Author:** ![Deadly\_Nightlight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Deadly\_Nightlight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deadly_Nightlight)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526/3 "2002-10-09T16:13:11Z")

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LOL I am asking the question for a friend, very rarely do I actually send a forward. But my friend sends me like ten a day- guess I might as well help her make them pretty 🙂 But I can try that for the day that I actually do find something worth forwarding

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**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526/4 "2002-10-09T17:25:20Z")

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If your e-mail program doesn’t have Search and Replace, you can do the following:

Select All  
Edit | Copy  
Paste into Notepad  
Edit | Replace “\>” with “” (note this will remove any \> symbols that are supposed to be there too - you might want to search for “\>\>” instead)  
Copy text from Notepad and paste back into original note  
Forward as normal

I concur that most mass-forwarded e-mails are a waste of time. Except this one I have right now where Bill Gates is going to send a postcard to Craig Shergold for every person I forward the e-mail to.

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**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-concerning-emails-and-forwards/131526/5 "2002-10-09T20:27:45Z")

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If you are talking about "\>"s being added by _your_ email client when forwarding or replying, you can turn this off.

E.g., in Outlook, go to “Tools -\> Options”, “Send”, “Plain text settings” and uncheck “Indent the original …”.

All reasonable email clients will have similar, but presumably easier to find, settings for turning it off.