Is there any way to change the outgoing time stamp for emails? I was supposed to send an email out earlier tonight, but I lost track of time and completely forgot. In other words, I need my email to look like it was sent out this afternoon rather than midnight.
DC
You can change your system time temporarily, but this will only show up in the SMTP timestamp. If the recipient actually looks at the email header, it will show the actual time it was received by the mailserver. You cannot change this time.
Thanks, Q.E.D. I thought the situation was hopeless, but I had to try.
I’m kinda lost with your lingo. Could you please explain to me what the SMTP timestamp is vs the time that would show up in the header?
Thanks.
DC
It’s just the time that appears at the top of an email along with the Subject and From fields, as in the following example:
This is put there in the SMTP packets sent out by your mail client. I should mention this will only show your system time if you use a local client, like Outlook. If you use a webmail client, like Hotmail, it will use their server time, instead. In any case, the actual received time will be included in the header, if the recipient cares to look.
Yes, but then you can say “I sent it at X:XX, something must have been wrong with the server or something that it was delayed for several hours”. I’ve seen it happen, and never questioned it.
You could say that, but it’s not at all certain anyone would believe you; you’re far more likely to prevail if you say less, for example “Dunno what went wrong, but I definitely sent it before the deadline”. But that would of course be lying, so I couldn’t possibly recommend it - in fact you’re probably just digging a deeper hole by attempting to fake the time stamp.
If this is about submission of homework or some such, it’s also likely to be a trick that the recipient has seen before.
BTW, if you use Outlook (not Outlook Express), it’s possible to, say, right-click on some document, click Send To>Mail Recipient, compose a message to go with the attachment and click Send, only to have the message not go anywhere - if the main Outlook application isn’t loaded at the time, the message will just sit in the outbox until such time as Outlook is launched.
one classic problem with my old mac is that the time functions keeps getting reset to 1904 (internal battery flat). If I dont notice it and change it, people may receive my emails, but depending on how their email reader is set up may not see it as it goes to the bottom of their inbox instead of the top
And is why most people who accept emails to a deadline specify when the email is to arrive in their mailbox. When you sent it doesn’t matter.
Check your settings. Options/ Mail Delivery / check the “Send messages immediately”
I have no idea why, but this defaults to “No, just let them pile up for a while until mail is next retrieved.” I guess this is from the olden days when each email would have meant a dialed-out phone call on your home line.