The Boards email form sends email with a Reply-To which reveals the forum user's registered email address.

[D. K]

I'm using phpbb3

I want forum users registered email to only be available to Admin/Mods.

I have Users send email via board:Enabled.

The board's email form sends email with a Reply-To which reveals the forum user's registered email address.

I don't want the recipient of the email to have anyway to capture the forum user's registered email address.

[warmweer]

I'm using phpbb3

Seriously?

ACP >>> tab GENERAL > Email settings perhaps

Hide email addresses:
This function keeps email addresses completely private. YES/NO

[D. K]

Thanks for considering the issue but no joy.

The Hide email addresses is set to Yes

[KevC]

That just overcomplicates things because if warmweer emailed me through the board, in order to reply to him I've got to go back to the board and find his profile and then message him through that. Why wouldn't we just use the PM system instead because that shows no email addresses and allows us to message directly anyway?

As admin you can find everyone's email address already.

[ssl]

Unless I'm mistaken, emails are sent via the board, so members' email addresses are not displayed as senders, it is the board address email.

Users send email via board:
Instead of showing the users email address users are able to send emails via the board.

[KevC]

That's what I always thought too.

[ssl]

I just did this test, the sender's email address is clearly visible. However, the box to hide members’ email addresses is ticked.

[thecoalman]

Among others there is sender, from and optional reply-to field in email. From and sender should be the same and the domain should match DNS records , SPF etc. for the IP of server sending it. Otherwise it might end up getting labeled spam. Reply-to is optional for cases like the one we have here where forum software is sending an email on behalf of someone. As already pointed out it wouldn't make any sense to not use the users email in reply-to.

When "Users send email via board:" board is enabled this has the benefit of not exposing the recipients email to scrapers or the user sending it. However unless you are tightly controlling user registration to known people IMO this should be disabled because you are opening yourself to be a relay for spam when it's enabled. When disabled email links revert to standard HTML email link opening the users email client instead.

"Hide email addresses:" set to yes will remove those links presumably only when "Users send email via board:" is disabled as it's only time it would be applicable. When it's set to no this can also be set by user, I believe it defaults to hidden. Personally just leave it to no and let the user decide.

The reply-to being filled with the users email address sending it is really the only way to do it for reasons already stated. Perhaps there should be warning it will expose your email to recipient if you use this feature but I would not see any reason to change the behavior.

[EA117]

The board's email form sends email with a Reply-To which reveals the forum user's registered email address.

Also note this situation is described on the email form:

Message body:
This message will be sent as plain text, do not include any HTML or BBCode. The return address for this message will be set to your email address.

Essentially "send email to user" is the opt-in for the person sending the email to reveal their email address to the receipient.

The recipient, in turn, is under no obligation to reveal their email address, unless they reply to the email received.

"Send a message without revealing anyone's email address" is effectively what a Private Message (PM) on the phpBB board accomplishes.

"Send email to user" is because the users intend to use email -- if the recipient chooses to reply -- and continue the conversation completely off-board via email. Actual email addresses and reply-tos have to be used in order to accomplish this.

[D. K]

Thank you all.

From the perspective you all have this makes sense. BUT our perspective is a little different.

We are running a very private forum. Users are not often & regularly coming to the forum and logging in. If we understand PM correctly for the users to send/see the PM they need to be logged-into the forums. The nature of our forum is such that a user may go months without logging in and not see the PM until they do log-in.

What we were hoping was for the email to prompt the user to log-in to be able to respond. That the email would show only the forum sender's forum name (handle).

So to respond the recipient of the email would have to log into the forums to either send a reply (or PM?). The idea is we really want our users to do most of their communicating in front of other users by posting. We really want Private Messaging/email be avoided by users.

If you would like to understand more just ask.

[ssl]

What we were hoping was for the email to prompt the user to log-in to be able to respond. That the email would show only the forum sender's forum name (handle).

generally when we receive a PM we receive an email notification to notify us that a PM has been sent

[D. K]

Being new to phpBB we suspected that. But that will back fire on us.

Our users are the type that one too many email when they have active PM dialog going will annoy the user. The user will them block the emails. Also this encourages the use of PM which is not what we desire. We really want Private Messaging/email be avoided by users so that the discussion is visible to all. We don't want the users to get what they may consider unnecessary email and block us or treat it as SPAM.

[thecoalman]

Email notifications are configurable by the user.

ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

[D. K]

We don't understand why this last suggestion was made.

To be clear we are looking for a way to setup the phpBB so only Admins/Mods have access to the users email address.

Board sent email should not reveal the users email address. At best it should only reveal the user's registered board name (handle)

Only Admins/Mods should control this, not the individual user.

If a user needs to get the attention of a member who has not logged-in in a while then they should be able to send via the board an email. The email received should only reveal their board name (handle) and NOT their email address of the sending user.

If the recipient wants to reply they can log-in to the board and send via the board an email or message via a PM as their reply. Preferably they post.

[thecoalman]

The only difference between what you asking for and the PM email notification is the message resides on the server.

In any event you would need extension to do what you want,you can make request here:

viewforum.php?f=496