Outlook question - Including email address with names of recipients in outgoing email.

Outlook will show the Display Name of the addressee or, if none, the e-mail address when you compose or send mail. You can change the Display Name to whatever you would like. My experience is that the Display Name by default is the same as the e-mail address.

I think the Outlook display is solely for your benefit. What gets displayed at the recipient's end of things is unclear to me, even if he or she is using Outlook. Others may know this. However, when I receive e-mail in Outlook the sender's name is displayed in exactly the format you are talking about, i.e., "Name [e-mail address]" unless the sender is in-house, i.e. somebody within out firm's network.

Hope this hellps.

You can change an individual's display name by changing the entry in the "Display As" box. This is a link to Outlook FAQ's: http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010900211033&CTT=3&Origin=HP010342861033&Client=1

Thanks to both of you.

Rut

Howdy again,

I suspect that no matter what I add to the Display for a contact, the only the recipient's email address is shown in the email on the recipient's end.

I tested this by sending an email to another person, including a cc: to an second person, and including a bcc: to myself. When I recieved the bcc, all it had on it was the email addresses for all three of us. The names of the individuals include in my Display information was excluded. Example, jdoe@sample.com, esmith@example.net, me@mysite.com. Not John Doe [jdoe@sample.com] ...

I checked the FAQ site suggested earlier and found no information covering this. This software is over-featured, so much so that it is so complicated that the features are difficult to learn, even for an old hat like me.

Any clues, anyone?

Rut

 

Howdy again, again,

I've done some experimenting and found as follows:

One can, as has been suggested and tried, include a contact's email address in the Display name for the contact. For example, in the Display name for John Doe, one can include, "John Doe - jdoe@sample.com", or "John Doe (jdoe@sample.com)", or "John Doe [jdoe@sample.com]".

After sending, one can open the email in Sent Items and see that the complete Display name with email address will be included on the "To:" line.

However, it's different for the recipient (either as the To, cc, or bcc recipient). When an email address is included in any form in a Display name, Outlook apparently sees the email address in the Display name, overrides any other information in the Display name, and includes only the email address on the "To:" line in the email received by the recipient.

If you want the John Doe recipient to get an email that shows "To: John Doe", with "cc: Jane Smith", neither John Doe's nor Jane Smith's email addresses can be used in their Contacts Display names. If their email addresses are used in their Display names, then Outlook takes control contrary to your wishes, and the John Doe recipient will get an email that shows "To: jdoe@sample.com" and "cc: jsmith@company.net", without the names.

I wanted all parties in receipt (To, cc, bcc, etc.) of an email to get both the names and the email addresses of all parties. But it doesn't appear like Outlook is going to allow that, unless there is something I'm missing.

Rut

Hmmm. I wonder if changing the e-mail address would help accomplish what you want--the names and e-mail of all addressees appearing on the e-mail that each receives. An e-mail address phrased as "Nonna Thing" followed by (enclosed in those little left and right arrows respectively--they are not allowed on this BB) NoThing@dell.com should show up in the recipient's mail box in exactly that format. It contains the information you wanted although not in the desired format. Chaning your recipients' email addresses accordingly might help. Just a thought.

Joe,

I thought about that as a possibility but haven't yet tried it. I think it would work, unless Outlook is smarter than we think it is. Perhaps putting the actual email address in quotes would do it, too. There must be a way to outsmart it.

I know that as is, doing it the previous way (including the actual email address with the name in the Display) works fine for the sender's copy of the email. But unfortunately, only the email address (without the name) part of the Display name get transmitted to the recipient.

Thanks,

Rut

Outlook 2002/XP SP3. When I  receive an email from someone else that was sent to many people, the names recorded in the To correspond, I think, with the way they are set in the sender's contacts list or address book; I get mixtures such as

name (E mail); name; email address. ('E mail' appears as written)

Some are enclosed in ' ', others not. These different formats could depend on the email provider used by the sender, and on whether they use an address book or an email contacts file, etc.

I have checked that the display of those names that I happen to have in my contacts list is not (except coincidentally) the same as what I have in the corresponding 'display as' box. My own name appears variously as name or email address, presumably depending on the sender's settings (e.g. new subscription activity emails from this forum have my forum name in the To field); so I don't think that what I see is determined by my settings.

The From address is usually 'name [email address]', and in the preview pane header that is followed by < email address >

Sometimes it is just the email address.

Another curiosity, Messages I have sent (including ones sent to myself) show in the From field my full name including middle initials!! These are included in the license holder name that Outlook knows about, but not in my contacts file (they are also included in my signature, but that is not where they come from: I tested with another signature). That seems to be new (SP3??) as older ones just had first name, last name.

When I send myself an email, the To field displays whatever I put in 'display as' for my contacts file, e.g. name, or name [email address]. I even tried a nickname; the From is always my name (including middle initials) [email address].

When I compose a new contact file, Doe, John, type in an email address the default 'display as' is John Doe (email address). So if you changed the ( ) to [ ], it should give you what you want?

I'll have to find out what recipients of my emails see.

 

Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 04-06-2004 09:21 PM

Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 04-06-2004 09:22 PM

Outlook 2002/XP SP3. When I  receive an email from someone else that was sent to many people, the names recorded in the To correspond, I think, with the way they are set in the sender's contacts list or address book; I get mixtures such as

name (E mail); name; email address. ('E mail' appears as written)

I think this is universally true, and true because the information is controlled by the sender. But I'll bet that if the sender uses Outlook, then for any party to whom the email is sent and whose Display name includes an email address, only the email address will be included for that recipient in all recipients' lists of recipients. (And this is a complicated sentence.)

Some are enclosed in ' ', others not. These different formats could depend on the email provider used by the sender, and on whether they use an address book or an email contacts file, etc.

I looked into the "address book" versus "contact file" information relative to this issue, thinking that using one rather than another might help. But Outlook help documentation is really confusing (i.e., not at all helpful) as to the difference between an "address book" and a "contact file." The best I can gather, there really is no such thing as an Outlook address book; but instead, any one or more contact files can be pulled up for use as an address book. I could easily be wrong about this.

The From address is usually 'name [email address]', and in the preview pane header that is followed by < email address >

That appears to be the standard for Outlook.

Another curiosity, Messages I have sent (including ones sent to myself) show in the From field my full name including middle initials!! These are included in the license holder name that Outlook knows about, but not in my contacts file (they are also included in my signature, but that is not where they come from: I tested with another signature). That seems to be new (SP3??) as older ones just had first name, last name.

That is a function of your setup for outgoing mail, I think. (Tools > Options > Mail Setup > Email Accounts)

When I send myself an email, the To field displays whatever I put in 'display as' for my contacts file, e.g. name, or name [email address]. I even tried a nickname; the From is always my name (including middle initials) [email address].

This is correct for your copy of the outgoing mail. But I'll bet that if you use a Display name that includes an email address (e.g. name[email address]), on the receiving end all you'll get is the email address.

When I compose a new contact file, Doe, John, type in an email address the default 'display as' is John Doe (email address). So if you changed the ( ) to [ ], it should give you what you want?

Thinking that might work, I tried it previously, but it didn't work. Sorry.

Thanks,

Rut

Thanks for your detailed comments. you are right about the middle initials coming from the email accounts set up. I did have to set those up again recently and presumably that's when I added the middle initials that previously I must have omitted. Nothing to do with SP3.

As for what appears in the To field on an email sent to myself, I meant that's what I see on the email that comes back in off the ISP server, not just the copy of the outgoing mail in the sent items folder. I don't see how Outlook would change the format of the To field on an incoming email from the server according to whether the sender was me or someone else.

All I know is that if I include an email address in a recipient's Display name, and if I send an email to that person and have the message delivered back to me (either as the self-recipient, as Cc or as Bcc), all I get in the To, Cc and Bcc lines is the email address, without the name that accompanies it in the Display name.

Rut

OK, apologies. It does seem to be different depending on whether you send an email to yourself or to someone else!

I prevailed on my daughter to act as a guinea pig (well, actually I've just sent her a bunch of emails with variations in the way I display her in the contacts file, I have yet to get her replies :)).

I sent her various emails, also sent to myself in both the To: field, and in the cc: field.

This is what I got in the mails sent or copied to myself:

1. In the To field, I am displayed exactly as I have it in my contacts file, whether or not that includes my email address, i.e. including  the display 'name [address]'; this is what I reported earlier.

2. If the 'display as' for her contact file does not contain an email address, she is also displayed in the To field exactly as I have in her contacts file. i.e whatever string I put there.

3. If the 'display as' in her contact file includes an email address, she is displayed only by the address, as you said.

So for some reason Outlook picks the sender out from the list of recipients and treats its display in the To field differently from all other recipients. How very odd.

If I break the address in 'display as' by adding spaces around the @ sign, the To field shows name [brokenaddress], i.e. it treats it as a string, case 2, but that is not a very satisfactory work around (though reply to all still works, i.e. the unbroken address is still there underneath whatever is displayed).

I have asked her to let me know what she sees in the various cases and will post if (when) I get her reply.

 

J,

Thanks for this.

I did some more experimenting, too, using my secretary's address for the recipient, and found pretty much the same things that you and I have both been reporting.

I think, but don't for sure remember, that the email she received included her email address following her name in the To: line, even though I had not included her email address in my Display name for her. In other words, in my Display name for her, I have "Jane Doe @ My Company". When I send an email to her, I think my Sent Items copy shows only "To: Jane Doe @ My Company". But when she receives the email from me, I think her To: line of the email says "To: Jane Doe @ My Company ".

I wanted both to read "To: Jane Doe @ My Company ".

Rut

Howdy,

Additional experimenting revealed these solutions to displaying a recipient's email address along with their name in an email:

In Display name for an address book entry, add the contact's email address enclosed in equal signs (=) or backwards arrows (><)

Examples

     John Doe =jdoe@howdythere.com=

     John Doe >jdoe@howdythere.com<

Other enclosure symbols might work, too, but these two are the only symbols I've checked so far.

Rut

Howdy again,

Sorry, but the resolution I posted previously worked for only a short while. Now it doesn't work.

Outlook apparently figured out what I was doing, that the text between the = signs is an email address, and on its own begain to abbreviate "John Doe =jdoe@noplace.com=" to just jdoe@noplace.com.

Back to the drawing board.

Rut