Long email threads where each reply quotes the entire previous or original message are difficult to follow. On the other hand, an email that refers to a previous message without any idea what it was about wastes time trying to remember the sender's original point. When you reply to an email, you should quote from the message you received, but only as much as necessary to establish context.

Depending on your email provider or app, you may be able to highlight the portion of the email you want to quote before clicking or tapping the Reply or Forward button. The email’s reply field will open with the highlighted quote already in the body of the email. Simply add your response and send. MacOS and iOS Mail work this way.

Some email clients, including Yahoo Mail and Gmail, do not allow you to mark a section to quote in your reply. You must quote the entire length of the text from the email and then manually delete the portions you do not want from your reply.

In some cases, you can copy the portion of the email you want to quote and select Paste as Quote or something similar, if your email program supports this feature (some do, some don't). In almost all cases, the quoted information is indented for easy identification. In some email programs, the quoted material is displayed in a different color.