Possible bug with conditional formatting using "Where I am" condition

Question

Hi,

I have a rule to apply conditional formatting for any email that is sent to me by enabling "Where I am: on the To line with other people".

This works fine and formats emails where I am on the To line accordingly. However, there is a specific case where the formatting is applied even when I am not on the To line and a specific individual is listed.

My best guess is there may be an issue with Outlook handling sir names with only 2 characters (my sir name is Ko) since the individual who appears in the To line that gets applied the formatting is Kondapalli. I think Outlook wrongly flags this individual as me and applies the formatting.

I am unable to test this theory since I do not have any other email with someone named "Ko..." in the To line.

Hopefully someone can make some sense out of this issue. Thank you in advance.

Regards,

James Ko

Note: I have tested this will all other conditional formatting removed.

Answer 1

Hi James,

It’s an expected behavior that email server will identify it a as a To behavior when you set that forwarding emails from shared mailbox.

Thanks for your understanding.

Best Regards,

Amanda

Answer 2

Hi Amanda,

Apologies I should have informed you ahead of the time the exact email addresses. They should be James.Ko@**** and KiranKumarReddy.Kondapalli@****.

To answer your questions:

1. This occurs for all emails where Kondapalli is on the To line (I have not noticed another instance since there is no other recipient who has KO as the first 2 letters of their sir name (which I suspect is the problem))
2. Tried the cleanview and recreating the conditional formatting but the issue persists

MSG file has been sent to you privately. Thank you.

Regards,

James

Answer 3

Hi James,

Based on the information you provided, I did a test by creating 2 Office 365 Business accounts (******@xx.com, ******@xx.com ) and set the same rule and same Office version as you did. But cannot reproduce the issue, so I want to confirm some information as follows:

1. Does this issue occur only once? Or many times?
2. If possible, please use “Outlook /cleanviews”. It restores default views. All custom views you created are lost.

For detailed information, you can refer to this article: Command-line switches for Outlook for Windows.

Then, recreate the new conditional formatting view to see if the issue persists.

1. From the screenshots, the emails are not sent to you individually and your mailbox receives the email. How did you receive the email? I mean are you on the CC line or one of the recipients in the To line is a distribution group that you are a member of?
2. If cleanviews cannot fix the issue, please save some affected messages and rule working messages as MSG files if possible (You can drag the email to desktop, then it will be saved as .msg file).

In order to protect your privacy, please send us the MSG file by private message I sent you.

Note: when you send us the email, please label the rule working messages or the problematic ones. So we can distinguish and compare them.

Thanks,

Amanda.

Answer 4

Hi Amanda,

Thank you for looking into this and your reply. Please find the requested details below:

1. Steps in creating the rule

From the View tab > View Settings > Conditional Formatting... > Add

Name: To Me

Font: Segoe UI, Bold Italic, Normal, Purple

Condition: (see screenshot below)

2. Screenshot of the rule:

3. Outlook version:

The following is an example email which the conditional formatting was applied:

You will note the font formatting has been applied to this email even though I am not on the To line. Thank you.

Regards,

James

Answer 5

Hi James,

About your description, I create 2 mailboxes as you referred to in the post, and choose the same condition as you. Based on my test, the rule works fine.

So could you please provide the information below for our further troubleshooting?

1. The detailed steps about create the rule.
2. The screenshot of the rule.
3. The version of your Outlook client. You can check it by opening Outlook>File>Office Account, please refer to the screenshot below:

Thanks,

Amanda