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Invasive Gmail message-nanny practice - is that new?

ianf [PersonRank 10]

Saturday, May 29, 2010
14 years ago4,974 views

I just got this dialog, which I found a tad too invasive for my liking.
http://i50.tinypic.com/jqkcnk.jpg
For the record, the triggering phrase in the mail was this, a quote from a newspaper: "Dennis Quaid is attached to play the ex-US president, reportedly beating X, Y and Z to the role."

Needless to say, I don't like this one bit, indeed would like Gmail to let me configure it so it never occurs, nor its sibling, the "Empty message body. Send anyway?" dialog. I am over 18.

mbegin [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

It's the "Forgotten Attachment" lab from 2008 (http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-in-labs-handy-intern-tweaks.html) which graduated from labs this February: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/gmail-labs-graduation-and-retirement.html

mbegin [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Also see: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/140851.html

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I don't think I ever had this enabled in Labs, yet now I have to live with it without so much as my say-so?

hebbet [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Forgotten Attachment is a default feature since Feb 2010

mbegin [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

>> I don't think I ever had this enabled in Labs, yet now I
>> have to live with it without so much as my say-so?

No. You can use Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, etc...

Zim [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Also, chances are this is all just javascript running some fancy regular expression.

Five Underscores [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

> Needless to say, I don't like this one bit, indeed would like Gmail to let me configure it so it never occurs, nor its sibling, the "Empty message body. Send anyway?" dialog. I am over 18.<

You can override the "Empty message body" pop-up by ending your Subject header with "EOM". I agree that it would be nice if there were ways of overriding the missing attachment detector.

ianf [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

For the record, what us the source of this *secret* configuration option?

Five Underscores [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

It looks like the EOM trick may have first been revealed in the official Gmail blog:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/tip-sending-empty-messages.html

You can also find it on this page:

http://www.google.com/mail/help/tips.html#black

though I was only able to find this page because I knew what to search for. So I agree. It is not well-documented. It doesn't come up in Gmail's help sections (unless you count the support forumy things).

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