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Is there a way to configure Gmail or add a labs extension to enable bottom-posting of replies?

By default it quotes the message you are replying and places the cursor at the top. I want it to place the cursor at the end of the (new) message.

Solutions that don't involve plugins like Greasemonkey are much appreciated. I'm using Google Chrome.

For those who don't know the horrors of top-posting:

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

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    Another gmail update, another set of interaction changes. Bottom posting feels even harder now.
    – user7292
    Apr 5, 2013 at 10:55

2 Answers 2

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(This is an opinionated don't-do-that answer.)

If you are doing bottom-posting properly, you should be editing and condensing your quoted text, and possibly splitting the quote and replying in-between, not leaving it untouched. Therefore, the initial cursor position should not be a big deal.

(The blank lines provided at the top, on the other hand, are purely an annoyance.)

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    I agree. Modern clients bring the selected text quoted when you reply for instance.
    – muhuk
    Sep 6, 2011 at 1:47
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    I find the blank lines quite irritating psychologically, mostly because when I see them, I think "wtf are they encouraging me to top-post?", which makes me mad.
    – SamB
    Jan 19, 2014 at 18:48
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    That would be 'interleaved posting' rather than bottom-posting.
    – anddam
    Mar 17, 2014 at 8:22
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    So now it hides the quoted text and leaves the cursor above it, so now I often don't even notice that it's even there until I'm about to send it (and could easily fail to notice it until after that). Not the easiest time to start paring down the quoted text and interspersing yours ...
    – SamB
    Sep 5, 2016 at 17:11
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The Google Labs tab now has a "Quote Selected Text" extension. When enabled, if you highlight the text you want to quote before hitting Reply, the compose box will come up bottom-post-wise, and minus the entire quoted thread that you didn't select.

As of this writing, there's no blank line between the attribution ("On Monday, muhuk wrote:") and the quoted text, but you can add a CR manually to make it look normal.

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    And as of June/July 2017, this lab has vanished. :-(
    – mattdm
    Jul 28, 2017 at 18:13
  • Yes, this is the real question/feature request.
    – d-b
    Nov 23, 2021 at 12:13

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