Why do some e-mails have those carrot (>) symbols and how do you get rid of them when fowarding an e-mail?

Answer 1

the carat symbol (>) is there to denote that the text is a forward. They can be valuable if there is confusion between what you are writing, and what someone before you wrote.

To get rid of them quickly, go to Edit (top menu), and Replace.
In the 'replace what,' type the >
in the 'replace with that,' put nothing.
Then hit 'Replace All.'

Done

Answer 2

The carat (>) symbol appears when someone replies of forwards an e-mail to you. This mostly is the case when there are inter-domain e-mails; i.e. from Yahoo! to MSN. This happens because the mail servers from the two domains use the Unicode Text Format (UTF). Some mail servers convert html to utf before relaying mails across domains.

It usually appears to indicate that the message is forwarded as many number of times as many rows of carats you see.

This occurs when the mail settings are not to set to "html" If you are using a mail client such as from Microsoft or Lotus, you can alter the mail display settings. Some web-mail sites such as Yahoo! also allow you to do that. By using the "html" setting you will not see the carat (>) symbol.

Answer 3

The ">" symbols come at the beginning of each line of quoted text in a forwarded email (i.e. each line of text that your email program inserted automatically when you hit "forward").

Jay's tip works for email programs, but not always with email editing in Safari or Internet Explorer. The only way that I've found to get rid of them is to manually delete each one. You can use the down arrow and delete key, but if it's a long email that's rather annoying.

The other option to /prevent/ their appearance (if you have a mac) is to go under preferences in Mail and uncheck the box that says "increase quote level when forwarding or replying," which won't delete previous "carrotting" but will at least prevent more of it from occuring. There may be a similar function in Microsoft Outlook, but I don't know.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

I hate those!

If you copy and paste the e-mail body into WordPad, then click on Edit, then Replace, you can put the sign > into the appropriate window, then click Replace All. It will replace all those characters at once. Then just copy and paste the new body into your e-mail.

I think there is a program out there that will do the same thing, I just haven't found it yet...

Good luck!
:D