How Can I Modify The Attribution Line in Mail 5.2

Question

How Can I Modify The Reply Attribution Line in Mail 5.2??E

Currently, by default, it is this:

On Feb 11, 2012, at 1:36 PM, (Sender Name) wrote:

I would like it to be like this:

Hello (Sender Name) -- On Feb 11, 2012, at 1:36 PM, you (Sender Email Address) wrote:

There was a script to easily do this in Office for Mac and its predecessor Entourage but, so far, I have not found any script, plug-in, or instructions to do this in Mail 5.2, so if anyone can advise how to do it, I will grateful, thanks.

Answer 1

There is no sane way to add the email address, which isn't part of the original message, to the line. But the order of existing elements (date, time, and sender name), and the text around them, can be changed.

Run the following command in Terminal, and enter your (administrator) account password:

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Set :REPLY_ATTRIBUTION "\nHello %3$@ -- On %2$@, at %1$@, you wrote:\n"' /System/Library/Frameworks/Message.framework/Versions/B/Resources/English.lproj/Delayed.strings

This will change a system file and, in the worst case, break things.

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Note that this line is also used when Replying to all, and therefore might not make sense to some recipients.