Reply attribution

The attribution line is the line of text that precedes the quoted original message when replying to an email. It normally looks something like this:

On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 3:15, Joe Bloggs wrote:

You can customise the attribution line on the Settings → Mail Preferences screen, going to the "Writing" section and updating the "Advanced" options by typing the pattern you wish to use in the "Reply attribution" text box in the "Compose" section.

If left blank, the default FastMail attribution line will be used. This is localised depending on your language preference, but in English has the following definition:

%n%nOn %a, %-e %b %Y, at %-l:%M %p, %+n wrote:

This inserts two blank lines, then the line of text:

On (weekday), (day) (month) (year), at (hour):(minute) (am/pm), (name) wrote:

If you enter text into this field, it will be used as the attribution line instead. Most text you enter will be used literally, however the system will replace any %X sequence with certain values. The available substitutions are:

Sender details

• %+f — the sender's name and email address.
• %+n — the sender's name (or email address, if no name is defined).
• %+a — the sender's email address.

Message time

• %d — the day of the month when the message was sent (01-31).
• %e — the day of the month when the message was sent (1-31).
• %m — the month when the message was sent (01-12).
• %Y — the year when the message was sent (4 digits).
• %y — the year when the message was sent (last 2 digits).
• %H — the hour when the message was sent (00-23).
• %I — the hour when the message was sent (01-12).
• %k — the hour when the message was sent (0-23).
• %l — the hour when the message was sent (1-12).
• %p — "AM" or "PM" when the message was sent. This will be localised to your current language where possible.
• %M — the minutes when the message was sent (00-59).
• %S — the seconds when the message was sent (00-59).
• %A — the week day when the message was sent (Monday-Saturday).
• %a — the abbreviated week day when the message was sent (Mon-Sat).
• %B — the month when the message was sent (January-December).
• %b — the abbreviated month when the message was sent (Jan-Dec).
• %z — the time zone offset for when the message was sent.

Some formats like %e, %k, %l are always 2 character wide, padded with a leading space. Place a - between the % and the letter to remove this space, e.g. %-e, %-k, %-l.

• %e on the 6th day of the month produces 6
• %-e on the 6th day of the month produces 6.

Other control characters

• %n — a new line.
• %% — the percent sign.