Gmail copies too much
March 16, 2011 1:10 PM

Grrr Gmail copies too much!-- what am I doing wrong?

Every single freakin' time I try to copy part of a message, Gmail grabs the entire message, including all headers and signatures. What am I doing wrong? I know how to use shortcuts, I know how to cut 'n' paste, but somehow I've flubbed up. I'm using Firefox.
posted by Ideefixe to Computers & Internet (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
Which messages are you grabbing? Is it sent mail, or some drafted reply?

For me, when I first click on the text in a draft, all text above that point gets selected. I click a second time, and I get an active cursor, and the ability to highlight anything. I've accidentally deleted or copied too much because of this a few times, so now I'm more careful.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:16 PM on March 16, 2011


If I need to copy a section from a received (or sent) message, I highlight the portion I want, right click, and when I go to paste--I get the whole dang thing.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:23 PM on March 16, 2011


You don't need to do all that (copy and paste, etc.). Just highlight the section you want to quote, and click reply.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:26 PM on March 16, 2011


Sorry, I'm not explaining myself. I need to copy a portion of an email to send to some one else, and when I go to highlight and copy (because i don't want to forward the entire thing), it grabs the whole email. Not trying to just reply to original sender.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:31 PM on March 16, 2011


Hmm. That seems to work fine for me. Why not just do the above and change the recipient?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:46 PM on March 16, 2011


I don't have this problem in Chrome, but here are a few suggestions:

What happens if you click the drop-down arrow next to "Reply" in the top right corner of the message and select either "Show original" or "Message text garbled?". Can you copy from there? What if you click the icon for "open this conversation in a new window" ? (it's in the top right of every conversation, and looks like two overlapping squares with an arrow pointing up and to the right).
posted by buckaroo_benzai at 1:46 PM on March 16, 2011


My GF has this problem.

Instead of right-click, use ctrl+c
posted by idb at 1:50 PM on March 16, 2011


I don't have this problem either, with right-click or ctrl+c.

Is it possible you're selecting 'Select all' after right-clicking? It is right under 'copy,' so it's probably easy to hit. If that's not it, is it possible this behavior got enabled through a Labs feature?
posted by grapesaresour at 1:58 PM on March 16, 2011


Hit reply and then copy the text..
posted by duddes02 at 1:59 PM on March 16, 2011


By the way, I'm in IT and I didn't believe it until I saw it. I figured she was doing something wrong, but it really is just as you describe. If I had to guess, I'd say it's an add-on that's interfering with the right-click, but I don't know which one. If you really want to narrow it down, you could try turning some of them off.
posted by idb at 5:03 PM on March 16, 2011


Ideefixe: "Sorry, I'm not explaining myself. I need to copy a portion of an email to send to some one else, and when I go to highlight and copy (because i don't want to forward the entire thing), it grabs the whole email. Not trying to just reply to original sender"

Simple - highlight the bit you want and click "Forward" (or press f). Gmail will automatically copy the correct part.

The other option is to use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V.
posted by turkeyphant at 5:35 PM on March 16, 2011


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