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General discussion

Email Dates - Where do they originate?

Jul 26, 2005 1:14AM PDT

I use Mozilla 1.7.10 to read my email. When I click on my Inbox, all the email it contains is shown in a separate pane with columns for Subject, Sender and Date.

I had always assumed these dates were either the date they were sent or the date they were received in my Inbox. On all emails I receive this appears to be the case except for email from the CNET Forums notifying me of new postings to threads I'm tracking. These always show a date of 12/31/69!

I have a second computer (with a different email account) that I hadn't been using for CNET Forums. Just for kicks, I logged on a Forum, with a new user name, and tracked a thread. The notification I received of a new posting showed a date that appears to be the date sent or received in my Inbox!

This isn't a major problem, I'm just curious if anyone knows why this is happening. Both computers run Windows XP Home with all Critical Updates and Mozilla 1.7.10. The one that gets the 12/31/69 dates has McAfee anti virus and MS firewall. The other, AVG antivirus and MS firewall.

Discussion is locked

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Over at another thread...
Jul 26, 2005 6:40AM PDT

I wrote that the date is optional in POP3/SMTP based email. Since there is no date in some emails, the email clients might fill it in with a "beginning of time" or other date/time.

Short answer? The date/time is not required for email.

Bob

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I understand the date isn't required.
Jul 27, 2005 1:30AM PDT

I note that when I View>Message Source, some have dates and some don't. Notifications from CNET Forums don't have a date. Yet my two similar computers show different dates for CNET Forum notifications. I was just curious whether these dates are generated by my computers or by my ISPs and why they are different.

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You'll have to dive into the email's 'code'.
Jul 27, 2005 2:24AM PDT

If I needed to peer inside the email internals, I would use POPFILE since it's my easy way to look at the dialog from the email server to my email client. From that I could tell if the email was delivered with a date or not.

As to why they differ, said dates have a number of 'standards'. This area is ready for the unsuspecting to get rather upset that you can receive:

a. no date.
b. the sending time.
c. the receiving time.
d. any number of timezones.
e. the time your email client picked it up.

It's an area that is as firm as jello.

Bob

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(NT) (NT) Guess that answers it...there is no one answer! Thanks!
Jul 27, 2005 6:38AM PDT