I have recently discovered Keyboard Maestro and it is awesome. I do not have any programming or scripting background so forgive me if this is really simple for some of you. I am creating a macro, if that is the correct term, to reply to emails I have received from friends whose email address has been used to send me spam or other malware. I was able to borrow some actions from an existing macro called hisender but I wanted to make my macro a little better by including the Subject of the email I had received. I have spent over an hour online looking for this information but was unable to find it. Stated another way in my reply text I want to insert the subject of the email I was replying to. Can this be done by inserting a properly constructed text string or is it more complicated than this?
I just realized my post was pretty bad. What I did was to modify a macro called hisender.
Here is a screenshot. I figure a picture is worth 1000 words.
What I did was to add more text to the last "Insert Text" macro box after the "%|%". Here is what I was trying to accomplish. About every couple of months I get an email with the email address of someone I know but the email is not from them but linked to spam or malware. In the past I type out an email to these people explaining what had happened. People appreciated being informed about this because invariably they heard from others but I was usually the first to inform them which enabled them to be prepared from others who frequently blamed them for the 'bad' email. When I got one of these this morning I decided to see if I could automate these responses using Keyboard Maestro. My original email was just straight text. Then I decided it would be nice to also let them know what the subject of the 'fake' email was. I though this would be as simple as putting in something like: %Variable%sender_subj%. This is where my ignorance got me in trouble because it is not so simple.
I figured I could create this macro pretty easily then upload for others to use as I figure that this happens to a number of more technically proficient Mac users who are also the first go to tech support for their family and friends. Though I know almost nothing about scripting and macros, I am fairly proficient in other areas of Mac computing.
I am really impressed. What you did makes my efforts look so amateurish. Three questions. First, I take it that you have created the KM macro Spam Informer and put in the download link above. May I download this? Second, if I have your permission to download and install it would I be able to edit it? In my case I just to change the hot key combination. Third, would I add it to KM by going to File/Import to Macro Library?
Thank you in advance. I want to contribute to this forum in the future but I am new to this and have only had KM for 3 days. The reason I did not want to forward these kind of emails is that most of the people who are supposed to have sent them to me are not technically proficient at all. I was afraid that if I forwarded the email they might accidentally click on the hyperlinks in the email but what you have done will protected from them from any embedded JavaScript and other junk. I am guessing that somehow your script is stripping out the bad hyperlinks. Very nice.
Thank you again Chris. I have would like to add a final instruction to send the email. The Mail Control/Send Mail Message in KM does more than just sent the email. Is there a simple command I could add at the end of your Spam Informer macro to do this?
Thank you Tom. I appreciate your point about preferring to check an email before sending it. That is probably what Chris was thinking as well. Thanks to you and Chris I have learned 3 new things today.
Thank you Chris. I like keyboard shortcuts when possible. I try to avoid using my mouse unless absolutely necessary. Funny after all our discussions about building this macro I had another one of these nefarious emails so I was able to use your macro. The way you created the macro was nice because this email required a slightly different response as the email address for the alleged sender was not his real email address.
