[mu4e bug] Quotes dissapear when non-ascii characters are present in the mail address name

[manueldeljesus]

Bug description

When the sender name of an email happen to contain some non-ascii characters (ñ, é, etc.) and the email contains a comma (SURNAME SURNAME, NAME), the quotes disappear in mu4e. When exploring with mu, I see that the original message keeps the quotes.

The result is that when responding (either to the sender or to all), every recipient with this problem generates an invalid address, and I am forced to regenerate the To: and Cc: fields.

Imagine an email with a sender that mu sees as "Muñoz García, Severino" <e.mail@addr.es>. Mu4e shows it like From: Muñoz García, Severino <e.mail@addr.es> (the quotes have disappeared). So when it tries to build the To: or Cc: fields, it results in:

To: Muñoz García, Severino <e.mail@addr.es>

which results in an error since it does not recognize Muñoz García as a valid email address -since it is not-.

I am already using a minimal mu4e configuration -at least from my point of view-, but can try anything specific to try to find more details about the issue.

Environment

It happens in Linux Mint 22.2 and Fedora 42. Emacs 29.X -it happen in many Emacs 29 versions- and Emacs 30. I'm using mu 1.12.13. The error was not present in mu 1.10.8. Indeed, at the beginning I also had the problem in Fedora. However, I updated to mu 1.12.13 to avoid another error that showed every time that I send an email -that was more inconvenient than this one-.

I use my own Emacs config, that it quite simple. I do not use any Emacs framework. Neither do I use Evil.

[djcb]

Can you attach a message (raw message file) where this happens? Thanks.

[manueldeljesus]

The most clear example that I have right now contains some sensible information that I would prefer to not share publicly. However, here I share the main information related to how the To and CC fields have been populated after pressing wide reply. The Manuel Dela Jus address is my address, so I get this problem almost with every email that I reply to -that is why it is so annoying-.

From: "Men Inc, Fer Vier" <fer.men@emailserver.ser>
To: "Per Di, Triz" <triz.per@emailserver.ser>, "Tiz-An Tos,
 Red" <red.tizan@emailserver.ser>,
	=?iso-8859-1?Q?Dela_Jus_Pe=F1il=2C_Manuel?= <manuel.delajus@emailserver.ser>,
	"Jim Bio, Man" <man.jim@emailserver.ser>, "Gigal Jil, Ra"
	<ra.gigal@emailserver.ser>, "Nedo Cena, Mar Nia"
	<nia.nedo@emailserver.ser>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mirad_que_curioso..._m=E1quina_de_hacer_lego-lands?=
Thread-Topic:
	=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mirad_que_curioso..._m=E1quina_de_hacer_lego-lands?=
Thread-Index: AQHcgMuPRgH/MrPtOUatiJIgGWw3tLVJnJJJ
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:01:58 +0000
Accept-Language: en-US
Content-Language: en-US

Is this information enough? If not, please, let me know which information is required and I'll do my best to anonymize the email.

Thank you very much for your help.

[djcb]

I just need a raw message file that reproduces the problem; so with M-x mu4e-save-message when looking at a message with the problem (the original, perhaps also the reply).

Remove anything sensitive from the file(s), as long as you make sure that the problem is still visible. And then attach to this this ticket, so I can check what's going on. Thanks.

[djcb]

Actually, I think I know what this is:
https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e/Writing-messages.html#Replying-to-unquoted-contacts-with-commas-in-their-name

I.e., add the following to your configuration:

(setq rfc2047-quote-decoded-words-containing-tspecials t)

[manueldeljesus]

I'd say that solves the problem, yes. I will double check for a couple of days, just in case, but it seems that the variable forces the correct behavior.

Thank you very much for your help.