Auto collapse email history in replies (Gmail-style "..." button)

[sjbhopal]

Currently, when replying to a ticket, FreeScout appends the full conversation history to the email body. In long threads with 20+ replies, this creates a massive wall of text ("infinite scrolling") for both the agent and the recipient. It makes the actual new reply hard to distinguish and clutters the email interface significantly.

I would like FreeScout to adopt a behavior similar to Gmail (and other modern helpdesks) where the quoted historical text is automatically trimmed/collapsed behind a "Show trimmed content" button (often represented by three dots ...).
Also remove internal agent names in conversation, use styling same we we reply from gmail.

Current Behavior: The entire previous conversation is fully expanded in every reply, leading to excessive vertical scrolling.

Expected Behavior: The historical conversation should be hidden/collapsed by default in the view, expandable only if the user clicks a "..." button.

have attached screenshots comparing the desired behavior (Gmail) vs. the current issue I am facing.

Image 1 (Desired): Shows how Gmail collapses history behind a ... button.

Image 2 (Current Issue): Shows the full, untrimmed history appearing in the reply, which creates the scrolling issue.

--

I would like FreeScout to format the appended history in outgoing emails so that modern email clients (like Gmail) recognize it as redundant/quoted text.

[freescout-help]

Unfortunately we don't know what are Gmail requirements to show this:

[sjbhopal]

Thanks for the update. The "Trimmed Content" (three dots) behavior in Gmail is triggered by specific HTML structures and heuristics that identify text as a "quote" of a previous message.

Currently, it seems FreeScout appends the history as standard paragraph text, which is why Gmail treats it as new content and forces the user to scroll through it.

To fix this, the appended history needs to be wrapped in specific HTML tags that email clients recognize as "quoted text."

Suggested Solution (HTML Structure)

Please verify if the appended history can be wrapped in a <div> with the class gmail_quote or a standard <blockquote>. This is the standard signal Gmail looks for.

Example of the current (likely) output:

<p>New reply text here...</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>From:</strong> User</p>
<p><strong>Sent:</strong> Date</p>
<p>Old message content...</p>

The history block should be wrapped like this:

<div>
  New reply text here...
</div>

<div class="gmail_quote">
  <div class="gmail_attr">On [Date], [Name] wrote:</div>
  <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
      Old message content...
  </blockquote>
</div>


--

Key Elements required for Gmail to auto-collapse:

class="gmail_quote": This is the strongest signal for Gmail to hide the content.

<blockquote> tag: Standard HTML tag for quotes.

Consistency: The content inside the quote must match the previous email's content. If FreeScout alters the HTML structure of the history (e.g., stripping classes or changing formatting), Gmail might treat it as "new" unique text and refuse to collapse it.

If we can wrap the appended history in a

wrapper, it should solve the infinite scrolling issue immediately.

Check show original of multiple Gmail threads to understand the HTML format they uses.

This is default behaviors of 100% helpdesk software:

Zohodesk reply snapshot:

[sjbhopal]

Could you please consider this a priority? If necessary, I am ready to pay for a dedicated module to handle this.

This is a mandatory requirement for our workflow because our customer conversations often span 100+ threads. Currently, sending the history as plain text results in improper formatting and endless scrolling, which breaks the user experience.

Due to this issue, we are unable to use FreeScout for production use.

[freescout-help]

FreeScout already adds a DIV with gmail_quote class:

freescout/resources/views/emails/customer/reply_fancy.blade.php

Line 19 in 64cebae

@if ($loop->index == 1)<!-- originalMessage --><div class="gmail_quote" style="height:0; font-size:0px; line-height:0px; color:#ffffff;"></div>@endif

Apparently Gmail algorithms decide that the content inside the quote does not fully match the previous email's content.

[sjbhopal]

These format is missing:
On [Date], [Name] wrote:

Can you check & fix this?

<div class="gmail_quote">
  <div class="gmail_attr">On [Date], [Name] wrote:</div>
  <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
      <<<<<<Old message content.>>>>>>>
  </blockquote>
</div>

[sjbhopal]

Thanks for pointing that out! I checked the line you mentioned, and I believe I found the issue.

In the current code:
`<div class="gmail_quote" ...></div>`

The div is empty and closes immediately. Gmail's algorithm looks for the content inside the .gmail_quote wrapper to know what to hide/collapse. Since the history content sits outside and after this empty div, Gmail treats it as new text and displays it fully.

The Fix:

The `<div class="gmail_quote">` needs to **wrap** the history content, not just precede it.

Could you please try changing the structure to something like this?

<div class="gmail_quote">
    @foreach($history as $item)
       ...
    @endforeach
</div> ```

If the history content is strictly **inside** this div, Gmail should successfully recognize and collapse it.

[freescout-help]

So far we could not make Gmail collapse replies.

Meanwhile you can try to use these parameters in "Manage > Settings".

[sjbhopal]

I turned on full conversation history, but for threads with 80+ replies, the emails are becoming huge and scrolling forever. It looks unprofessional. I need a way to include the history but keep it collapsed by default.

How do other helpdesks able to handle this?
I checked zohodesk, zendesk, helpscout, all able to handle this.
Please fix this here also.

its very useful thing for production use.
Please help..!!

[freescout-help]

Try with the attached /resources/views/emails/customer/reply_fancy.blade.php file:
reply_fancy.blade.zip

Don't forget to clear cache in "Manage > System> Tools"

[sjbhopal]

Working now from 4th reply,
How to make it from 2nd reply? like Gmail does for each email.

Can you help in setting format like below image:
Collapsed from 2nd reply & with this line format:
On Mon, <date>, <name> <EMAIL_ID> wrote:

Screenshot:

[freescout-help]

For new conversations it will work for the second reply.

[sjbhopal]

I tested in new conversation.
Its working for 2nd reply if there are only 2 reply

When there are more than 2 then its working from 4th: