Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2021 September 5

= September 5 =

Microsoft Word AutoRecovery
I have a few questions about the details of when the AutoRecovery feature of Word is turned on. I think that what I really want is technical documentation provided by Microsoft, specifically of AutoRecovery saves to the C: drive. (It appears that the feature is usually but not always active when the file that I am editing is on the E: drive. But I think that I am more likely to get answers by looking at technical documentation than by asking specific questions.) Robert McClenon (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I would also like information about the AutoRecovery feature in Excel, which I see is similar to but not the same as the feature in Word. But my question is about Word. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Here are details of the autorecovery feature timing for Excel. (I'm not ignoring the fact that the question was about Word, I just can't find an equivalent document about Word. Here is the search box if you want to have a go yourself.) Card Zero  (talk) 00:36, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Microsoft Word .bak File
I do have one specific question. Some years ago, it was possible to set an option in Word so that when I saved a document, the last previous version of the document, rather than being overwritten, was renamed by giving it the filetype of .bak. This was a useful feature if one occasionally overwrote something that one sort of wanted to keep. I can't see an option to turn this feature on with the current version of Office (365). Does the feature still exist, or has it gone away? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't confirm whether the file extension is still .bak, but here are a couple of pages from a tips site: Making Backup Copies, Opening a Backup File. Card Zero  (talk) 01:29, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Custom from address?
I use Claws Mail on Windows 10. Sometimes I want to send a work-related email from my home PC but make the "from" the same as my work email so any responses go there. Is there a way to edit the "from"? This would also be useful for those who use a "do not reply" from address.

I would be willing to switch to another email client but I like Claws because it is FOSS, fast, and doesn't do HTML unless you use the "fancy" plug in. -20:33, 5 September 2021 (UTC)2600:1700:D0A0:21B0:D9A4:451C:98BD:73C2 (talk)


 * Possibly the "type any header" hidden setting does what you want - or possibly not, the information I found was rather sparse and vague, but I found it here in the Claws manual. I hope it might mean that you can "type" (i.e. type into, that is, edit - a peculiar choice of verb) every part of the email header when composing an email, including the "from" field. (But maybe type means some specific other thing that I'm not aware of.) Card Zero  (talk) 21:20, 5 September 2021 (UTC)


 * This is known as Email spoofing, which is generally frowned on as it is used by hackers and fraudsters. This page gives some details. From the Claws Mail documentation
 * "Account Customisation": multiple accounts are allowed with Claws Mail: set up another account of the type "None, (SMTP only)" this is a special type of account that won't retrieve any mail, but will allow you to create different identities [ie you@yourwork.com] that can be used to send out emails with various aliases, for example.
 * Your ISP or your employer may or may not like this. MinorProphet (talk) 21:24, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Very helpful. I just looked up a bunch of info on email spoofing, and here is what I found:
 * In my case my home email provider and the one at work are both Tuffmail and looking up the DNS records I see that they both have the same Sender Policy Framework so I think there should not be a problem with anyone rejecting the emails. I don't know if they have the same DMARC; I will have to ask our IT guy on Monday.
 * If the two systems have different spf (and maybe different dmarc?) my scheme is likely to result in the system I am sending the email to rejecting it. In that case the best option is to see if you can log on to your work email server from home.
 * Tuffmail will be closing down on January first. I should try to move to the same replacement email vendor that my employer moves to if I want my scheme to keep working. -00:20, 6 September 2021 (UTC)2600:1700:D0A0:21B0:7C27:B77E:DD20:6419 (talk)
 * SPF etc aside, you may want to check your personal e-mail SMTP server even allows a different "from". Some many not accept it and may either reject your email or overwrite it. Others may only accepted it if you've confirmed you're able to see emails sent to that address (i.e. send them a confirmation code sent to that address) which should of course be possible to you. You mentioned "IT guy" so I guess this is a relatively small company but you should consider even if your employer's SPF etc aren't going to get your emails marked as potentially spoofed at the moment, there might still be a possibility this will change sometime in the future without you being informed and that this may not be obvious until finally someone complains about not receiving your email or it ending up in their spam inbox. As sort of indicated by the above reply, the general 'correct' way to do this nowadays would be to use your employer's SMTP server to send the work related e-mail. If you're only allowed to access said SMTP server from within their network, you may need to see if they can provide a VPN or similar. Many SMTP servers abandoned just accepting email from anyone within their network anyway relying on some form of SMTP Authentication, although corporate one may potentially still use both. Putting aside spoofing issues, some businesses may not allow emails sent on their behalf to be sent via some other SMTP server since they may have record-keeping requirements which cannot be met when that happens. As indicated below, if no one cases you can just use the reply-to address to indicate where replies should be sent. Nil Einne (talk) 09:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

If you want to redirect replies to email you send, the header line you want to set is Reply-To. --184.144.99.72 (talk) 02:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is the correct answer to the initial query. Spoofing "from" is going to get you in trouble with some servers, unless you can get the IT guy at somecorp.com to whitelist you and you only send work emails to addresses at somecorp.com. A different reply-to is accepted by every sane server, and available off-the-box in many email clients without digging into configuration files.