A method for responding to an electronic mail ("email") message presented to a user on a display screen of a data processing system, comprising: receiving a command from the user to generate a reply to the email message using content from one or more template replies, the reply having a subject line and a body; presenting a choice of the one or more template replies to the user; receiving a command to select a template reply from the choice, the template reply having a subject line and a body; and generating the reply by inserting content from the body of the template reply into the body of the reply.