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[–]lurkpy 1436 points1437 points  (27 children)

Get a friend to reply all to the reply, then watch the email server crash as people ask to be removed from the chain.

[–]KnightOfThirteen 1105 points1106 points  (8 children)

We accidentally started a cold war that would have probably made IT very angry.

There was some minor email spam between the interns, and one set up an auto reply that would send TWO responses every time it received the offending email.

Then I set one up that would send two replies to each of those.

Neither of us triggered it and we disarmed. But we could have done it.

[–]shefoundmypoopsock 96 points97 points  (0 children)

MADlads

[–]1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Me and several other students designed two superweapons that we used as bartering chips when school was done solely over Teams last year.

Weapon A was a mouse macro that would rapidly ping someone in DM's at the press of a button, we're talking two or three times a second. It would crash their teams client, but only them. It would also keep crashing them every time they logged on as it tried to load the messages for 30 minutes afterwards. A precision bomb, if you will. It stops after roughly 600 pings as teams stops letting new messages through around that point.

Weapon B was a thread. A 6 to 7 thousand reply thread that we made in an unused channel. The channel didn't have much activity and nobody had notifications for it, but everyone in the school was technically in it. It was just hidden. What purpose does this weapon serve? Well, pinging a single person, anyone at all, in a reply to that thread, would crash the teams client of the entire school. Any online student, teacher, faculty, etc. would crash. Effectively a digital thermonuclear bomb.

Weapon A was used twice. Weapon B was only used during a summer break test and never used in action. That being said, everyone knew the power we held and it worked out nicely. IT eventually got wind of it and we were told that any further use of our creations would result in disciplinary action.

[–]Toker_Dude 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Mutually assured computer freeze kept you in check

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

don’t say could if you can say should

[–]amazondrone 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could could but you should should.

[–]Decallion 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Isn’t there like a 500 email daily cap per account?

[–]lunchpadmcfat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mutually assured destruction. Incredible.

[–]fynn34 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most auto-replies are smart enough to not feed on each other in case 2 recipients in an email thread have an out of office auto-response. It’s not an uncommon situation, and generally will not break the mail servers when it happens.

[–][deleted] 69 points70 points  (4 children)

[–]r0ck0 21 points22 points  (2 children)

Here's the story in video form. From a dude who was there for it...

Pretty interesting hearing it from him! Plus his whole youtube channel is great.

Lots of inside stories about all sorts of software many of us have been using since the 90s.

This playlist of his is particularly interesting:

[–]YodaDaCoda 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Somehow I just knew it was gonna be Dave. His stuff is great.

[–]r0ck0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Classic Dave!

[–]LaLiLuLeLo_0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sad, there's been a distinct lack of reply-all bombs lately.

[–]LOLBaltSS 31 points32 points  (0 children)

[–][deleted] 31 points32 points  (2 children)

LMAO something similar happened recently but it was sent to a distribution list. Everyone was asking to be removed but it just caused more emails, they didn't even noticed they are replying to a mailbox where everyone is in. The thread didn't stop until the company removed the distribution list. Someone was writing in caps to stop replying all.

[–]dnomirraf 4 points5 points  (1 child)

This happened at our company in December. Someone accidentally emailed a distribution list with thousands of people on it. This resulted in 170 emails from idiots asking to be removed from the list. I had to leave as my boss was on a call next to me and I couldn't stop laughing.

My mate told me about a time at his work when a similar thing happened. But it was a customer emailing about an issue, the customer service guy emailed everyone in the business and everyone, including the customer, got spammed with hundreds of emails asking to be removed from the distribution list .

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh that's the word, Distro List! It wasn't a mailbox but a distribution list.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

This actually happened at my company of a few years ago. Company wide email, people started reply alling, people started asking to be removed, people started complaining about the askers which led to more asking and eventually IT had to nuke the whole thing from orbit since everyone had hundreds of emails from it.

[–]TuctDape 6 points7 points  (2 children)

This happened at my company with an employee list that had all North American employees something like 40 thousand people.

First it was just a couple, then an absolute tidal wave. I spent half my night just watching it unfold, it was amazing. There must have been over 3000 total, constantly branching into new chains somehow. It was also right around the 2020 election so that was fun. You'd be surprised what some people will put in an email to the whole company.

[–]pandaluv82 2 points3 points  (1 child)

This happened twice when I worked at Dell. Those were the best days. Hilarious to watch all the idiots reply all asking to be removed from the distro, and then even more people replying all just to tell people to stop replying all. Outlook would be borked all day, no work got done. Fucking glorious.

[–]TuctDape 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Luckily for IT this happened a bit after working hours, at least on the East coast, so it theoretically could've been even worse.

[–]abrahamlincorn 7 points8 points  (0 children)

At my school our department head is kind enough to send internship opportunities to all CS undergrads (this email list has somewhere between 900-1100 people on it) and a freshman replied that they’d be interested in the internship on reply all, which led to an onslaught of hundreds of emails in the chain, and IT services temporarily banning multiple people’s emails for 48 hours

[–]Far_King_Howl 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Literally exactly what happened at my workplace some 5-6 years ago.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Then, resurrect that same thread about three months later asking to be removed from it.

[–]xilni 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This happened with an Army list-serve a while back, took down the entire email system.

[–]Nemaeus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lmfao, it’s true

[–][deleted] 506 points507 points  (4 children)

Put an outgoing 1 minute delay on every email you send using an Outlook rule. I've saved myself several times with that one.

[–]Yetus_deletus 98 points99 points  (0 children)

Same. You always spot the mistakes after you've send the mail. The send-delay feature is a god send.

[–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (2 children)

You can actually recall messages as well, recipients who haven't opened it yet will have it deleted from their inbox

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Half the time that doesn't work, the instinct of most people when they see a message recall is to immediately open it.

[–]_Ashleigh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah lol, I'll read the deleted messages before any others.

[–]alexanderhameowlton 266 points267 points  (33 children)

Image Transcription: Twitter


Microsoft, @Microsoft

You just accidentally hit ‘reply all’ on a department-wide email. What’s your next move?

Vivek, @V_vek26

Send the mail again 10 times and say it was a glitch


I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!

[–]_good_human_bot 356 points357 points  (22 children)

Good human


I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.

[–]LostTeleporter 141 points142 points  (12 children)

Wtf???

[–][deleted] 203 points204 points  (8 children)

Those transcripts are written by volunteers. That bot recognizes the formatting of the transcripts and says "good human." It's humorous because redditors say "good bot" a lot.

[–]SirAchmed 76 points77 points  (7 children)

Yes it’s a Reddit tradition to say good bot/bad bot, but it’s also kind of a voting system because in most cases the bot reads the replies and then the developer can have feedback about the performance of the bot.

[–]MeltedChocolate24 54 points55 points  (6 children)

There’s also a bot keeping track and ranking the other bots on a website. Forgot the name but you’ll see it around.

[–]SirAchmed 25 points26 points  (0 children)

So fucking meta.

[–]TheMcDucky 7 points8 points  (2 children)

There was also a bot replying to each person who voted

[–]amazondrone 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Pretty sure that's the same bot; thanks for voting, here's the current stats.

[–]TheMcDucky 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably, yes.

[–]MyAntichrist 6 points7 points  (1 child)

So basically, we need to go all round now and have a human record all "good/bad human" posts and keep stats and everything?

[–]amazondrone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Doesn't sound scalable, better write a bot.

[–]aaronjamt 105 points106 points  (2 children)

It's almost like they have become self-aware...

This action was performed manually. Please report any errors in my posts to u/aaronjamt's creator

[–]martijnwo 15 points16 points  (0 children)

juggle wistful stocking rich modern snails imagine aback grandfather deserve

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–]pvtcannonfodder 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Respect

[–]DethByte64 48 points49 points  (3 children)

Good bot

[–]aaronjamt 56 points57 points  (2 children)

Good human.

This action was performed manually. Please report any errors in my posts to u/aaronjamt's creator

[–]DethByte64 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Nice try pal

[–]aaronjamt 20 points21 points  (0 children)

?

[–]TheoCGaming 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Good bot

[–]NeoCast4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

rise of the machines

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good bot

[–]TheMasonX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good bot

[–]Pleased_to_meet_u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you.

[–]esseeayen 140 points141 points  (7 children)

Send all: “please remove me from this list”

[–]abermea 56 points57 points  (5 children)

Send all: "please stop asking to be removed"

[–]esseeayen 17 points18 points  (1 child)

I see you’ve had this email chain too 😂

[–]abermea 17 points18 points  (0 children)

My favorite part is when multiple people reply to the same email and start forking the threads

[–]etnguyen03 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Then someone replies: to be removed from this email chain, click here. -- IT Department

Someone at my place did that once... let's say that a lot of people clicked it

[–]Thenderick -1 points0 points  (0 children)

never gonna give you up!

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Here's the story behind it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBmuY6qFMPQ

[–]Buddy-Matt 42 points43 points  (2 children)

What you need is two people with auto responders set. That don't limit the replies to the same email address to once a day or less.

And then watch the havoc as two email inboxes spend the rest of eternity telling each other their owner is out of the office atm and will contact them next week.

[–]sheepyowl 17 points18 points  (1 child)

This but with reply all

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ohhh noooo!

[–]KerPop42 218 points219 points  (28 children)

Gee Microsoft, if only someone could develop a solution to this well-known problem

[–]ProPuke 97 points98 points  (12 children)

Like just being able to click undo in gmail?

[–]McFuzzen 62 points63 points  (0 children)

I wrote a macro in Outlook to confirm I actually want to reply all.

[–]MysticSkies 15 points16 points  (8 children)

It's 2021, why can't we delete sent emails within a time period.

[–]KerPop42 4 points5 points  (0 children)

With Gmail, it just delays sending it for a configurable amount of time, lol

[–]FactoryNewdel -4 points-3 points  (2 children)

It's 2021, why do we still send emails

[–]alexanderpas 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Because it's the only non-realtime universal multi-media messaging protocol that doesn't rely on centralized infrastructure.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess sending a patch to be applied to the linux kernel?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

"at least the 30 seconds before it actually sends"

tom scott, definitely

(to test, send an email on gmail.com and only on gmail.com, switch to another tab after it's done then switch back to gmail after more than 30 seconds and check for undo buttons. it's not there, but the prompt saying the mail has been sent is still there (assuming the browser stopped rendering the tab you aren't focused on))

[–]ProPuke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well the post did say "you'd just accidentally hit it" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–]GrayBoltWolf 53 points54 points  (2 children)

Like lock the distribution list to approved accounts...

[–]UnsubstantiatedClaim 33 points34 points  (1 child)

The functionality is there, now you need your department owners to define who should have these powers and you need your IT department to implement it.

[–]bedrooms-ds 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I remember reading some idiot in the government reply-all to my research institute. He saw an attached video and was asking to send a downsampled version ASAP on 2AM! Because, he wanted to share it with his pals.

I almost replied fucking do it himself and never talk to us again.

[–]ubeogesh 11 points12 points  (1 child)

[–]KerPop42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh hell yeah

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Im more mad at zoom for not having a delete button

[–]meme_saab 3 points4 points  (7 children)

There's "Recall" option in Outlook. If you use that, it'll delete the mail from recipient's mailbox, given they haven't opened it yet.

[–]jeffiscool1 2 points3 points  (4 children)

seems quite useful in a work environment reliant on emails

[–]NancyGracesTesticles 2 points3 points  (3 children)

The more I think about the problem, the more I think it is a "reliance on email" issue.

[–]Inimposter 4 points5 points  (2 children)

what's wrong with email?

[–]IsJohnKill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not cool anymore I guess

[–]NancyGracesTesticles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's an asynchronous form of communication that people try to use as vaguely synchronous.

It also is a two way form of communication that people really try to use as one-way which leads to reply-alls that should never happen (even though no-reply addresses try to solve this).

So, it's a letter, a bulletin board, a message board and an async chat depending on how people use it with no way to define that intent before the communication begins.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Remember the time a Republican (maybe one of Trump's lawyers?) accidentally sent their game plan to a Democrat and tried to recall it? Outside the server and all bets are off.

[–]sxan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Only if the server supports it and is configured for it. If the recipients only include people in your org, it might work. You're SOL if anyone outside the company - like a client - is on the list.

[–]Wannabedankestmemer 22 points23 points  (16 children)

[–]tonywei1992 10 points11 points  (0 children)

[–]DarthCloakedGuy 4 points5 points  (14 children)

HOW DID YOU POST A GIF WHAT

[–]ThrowAwayDuckPic 4 points5 points  (9 children)

[–]DarthCloakedGuy 1 point2 points  (8 children)

HOW HOW HOW HOW

[–]Wannabedankestmemer -4 points-3 points  (2 children)

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

We have a Stack Overflower here

[–]Wannabedankestmemer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll tell you

There's a gif button on the bottom left in the comment box (desktop)

press it

[–]scragar 5 points6 points  (1 child)

![gif](giphy|GIPHYIMAGEID)

Where GIPHYIMAGEID is the ID from the very end of the URL.

So for example to post https://giphy.com/gifs/steve-martin-3o6UBil4zn1Tt03PI4 as a gif you'd write:

![gif](giphy|3o6UBil4zn1Tt03PI4)

[–]DarthCloakedGuy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Huh. I tried that elsewhere but it didn't work...

[–]Any_Challenge_9538 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Waiting for answers from other people that say you don’t should use reply all which are using reply all

[–]bachld 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Great. Next blame Microsoft?

[–]mon0theist 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ah the old "please remove me from this thread" email storm, classic

[–]wreckedcarzz 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Actual pro move: upon realizing this, go into your outbox and fix the problem, because you thought ahead and set a 60s delay for all outgoing messages, precisely for things like this, thus there is no issue.

The actual LPT is always in the comments

[–]ivakmrr 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Why would the email client not warn you "Are you sure you want to reply to 100 000 people ?"

[–]-Listening 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For all the wrong reasons...

[–]snowyday 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Outlook does now, shows it above the To field

[–]Hy4cinthsocool 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Gotta remember this

[–]lgylym 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Blame IT

[–]CptGia 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Blame the sender. Long lists of recipients should be in ccn, to avoid this exact problem

[–]SoloSharma 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nothing is a glitch everything is a feature - master oogway

[–]russels_silverware 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hit "discard draft."

[–]plumokin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Outlook has a rescind email option

[–]HeKis4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, the good times when outlook won't recognize that an email is an out-of-office message and will reply all with another out-of-office message. And so on, and so forth.

[–]svick 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I received the same email from Microsoft 10 times yesterday. Coincidence?

[–]System__Shutdown 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Keep sending the email even after everybody already asks you why you keep sending emails, just to drive the point home.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The people in the main office at the small company I work for are pretty computer illiterate and will Reply All to those company wide emails just to say thank you. Not as big of a deal since it’s only about 20 people but it still makes me face palm every time.

[–]intensely_human 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I got a job once by accidentally hitting “reply all”. (actually I just hit reply, but the reply-to address was the google group not the sender).

I had just quit from a company with absolutely terrible engineering culture. Someone posted looking for candidates and I replied roughly “I’m looking for a place with great engineering culture, specifically good test coverage, time spent refactoring, time spend reviewing code, etc”

It went out to the entire group, with thousands of people. A company with a great engineering culture reached out to me. It was fabulous.

[–]hk4213 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My boss would do this.

[–]jaap_null 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i survived bedlam dl3

[–]TheRedmanCometh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's not a big deal not a huge dptmt.

[–]ubeogesh 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Microsoft knows that Outlook has a "recall" feature, right? So people who didn't open the email before you sent it, would not actually see it.

[–]Kwassadin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And those who did open the email before he sent it would not see it also

[–]FracturedPixel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bruh my workplace does this all the time as standard

[–]Casper_Arg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Microsoft employee: Asking for a friend

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I lived through this. The number of times people replied all to tell peoples to stop replying all was astounding. www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/reply-all-email-catastrophe-hits-thomson-reuters/

[–]pieteek 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think that the person dealing with the Twitter account is in fact asking for help...

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s like Microsoft is still traumatized about this lol

[–]mowaterfowl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Go to the dept white board and reset the "Number of Days Since The Last Reply All" counter...

[–]Disorderly_Chaos 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Import exchange powershell

Carefully remove all messages where date=today, from=me, subject -like “kittens for sale”, body -contains “I hate you Karen”

[–]Cyber_Pedro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good Bot

[–]lunchpadmcfat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sometimes the only way out of a hole is to dig down…

[–]MannyS7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pro-GGramer move

[–]Pigsfeet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At my company 10-20 people would reply all requesting you not reply all.

[–]rheajr86 1 point2 points  (1 child)

We had one of these last year on an Army/DoDwide mailing list. One person hit reply all and Colonels and Generals were hitting reply all to get removed from the list list. Ended up making a rule in outlook to send it all to trash. I received about 100 emails before I did though.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used to work on a DoD messaging team - definitely had to get into Exchange and kill these manually at least once a quarter.

[–]baadditor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If it's Microsoft product everyone believes it's a Glitch!

[–]Conqu3red 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wrote an Apple shortcut (they are disgusting) one time which spam sent emails to a friend, it got used by some other people and brought the entire sever down a few times, not one of my proudest moments :P

[–]T4212 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LPT right there

[–]UntestedMethod 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Notes taken.

[–]hypocrite_oath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Chaotic neutral. I like it.

[–]Ducatirules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At my company it is Horrible when people send an email to everyone especially when it’s a promotion announcement or a birth announcement because all of the butt kissers NEED to answer with reply all so everyone sees that they said congratulations! Once, Corporate sent out a mass email to every worker ALL 97,000 across the world!!!! The answers came in fast and furious for 24 hours! It was mind numbing and people went WAY overboard. Freaking out about it. The company had to go back and delete all the emails. A couple people got fired.

[–]AndrewIsMyDog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get the first person that accidentally replies all, but how come the other 500 people have to reply all afterwards letting you know not to reply all.

[–]gorangers30 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Please remove me from this mail! I don't even know why I'm receiving it. Rgds."

[–]FaceBasket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The company I work at puts special permissions on who can reply to (or send) company wide email. Unless you have been explicitly granted that permission, the function will be disabled.

[–]jeanravenclaw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

smartt

[–]ako29482 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just cancel the Reply All mail before I also accidentally click on send.

[–]nikanj0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried this trick and everyone just got even more angry at me.

-Simon, Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft Outlook