Stop changing the display of email addresses to names on outlook. This is supporting CYBERSECURITY Criminals.

Question

When I type an e-mail address to someone, Outlook changes it to the name in my contacts instead of leaving it alone as the actual e-mail address.

For example, I received an email from an unknown contact (a scammer) whose email address is **removed for privacy reasons**@gmail.com and outlook displays my CEO's name instead of the scammer's email address. How and why is my CEO's name displayed from an email address that has random letters??

The way Outlook is currently displaying names instead of email addresses makes people extremely vulnerable to scams, phishing, malware, and other cybersecurity threats.

Furthermore, I am not the first person to raise this issue. Please see this same issue raised at this link: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/show-the-actual-e-mail-address-instead-of-the-name/09baa36a-b494-456c-901f-475032c72b8d?page=1  Microsoft needs to address this issue and stop giving responses on forums that are unrelated to issue at hand. Instead please ESCALATE this issue to appropriate party responsible for making decisions and TAKE ACTION immediately.

Answer 1

I absolutely agree with the OP. Saying "one can easily check the true email address" is an incomprehensibly bad security attitude. The entire point is that busy, stressed people in a company won't always spot this, and it only takes one slip. A security policy that relies on human users being infallible is bafflingly inappropriate.

It's a really poor showing that Microsoft does not offer an option to disable that pointless 'friendly name' feature. It was a bad idea in the first place, and it's a terrible feature in the 21st century landscape of constant cyber-attacks.

Microsoft should be setting a lead and disabling this feature by default. The disadvantages massively outweigh the benefits. The OP hit the nail on the head. I will be adding this as a feature request. I encourage others reading this with the same issue to do the same. It's just a bit embarrassing and rather telling if that's the only way to effect such a long-overdue commonsense change.

Answer 2

Thanks for your help. I’ll try that and confirm if it works.

With regard to the 2nd paragraph in your response, the email address the scammer used (which I provided in my original post) was a set of random letters. Furthermore, the email address was not saved in my contacts. With that said, could

you please adjust your response and address why was it displaying a name? I think this question has been raised multiple times with Microsoft and no one has yet got a straight answer.

Yes, I agree it is important to verify the senders email address before responding to any emails … it would be easier to do that if Microsoft displayed email addresses instead of names, or at least created an advanced option to do so for users.

It’s 2023; there’s no reason your response to this should be “currently we don’t have that as a feature or option” or “if the person is in your contacts” excuse. In this cybersecurity landscape, if users NEED email addresses displayed regardless of who’s on their contact list, that should be presented as an option by Microsoft.

Thanks for escalating this issue. This issue is important and has been raised multiple times. It would be nice for this to finally be addressed in a real way.

Answer 3

Vince,

You said, “However, you can change this setting by going to Outlook.com settings, selecting "View all Outlook settings," clicking on "Compose and reply," and then selecting "Always show email address." 

Response:

This isn’t helpful. Please see reasons below.

1. “Always show email address" is not an option that is displayed under “Compose and reply”. Please advise or provide screenshots to accompany your instructions.
2. I’m assuming you’re referring to the web-based application because on the desktop app, settings are accessed by clicking on “file”, then “options”. Please provide instructions for the desktop outlook Application as well.

Thanks,

Answer 4

Hello! Sanjana Chowdhury

Thank you for the reply!

To show only the email address instead of the name of the sender in Outlook application, you can follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook and click on the File tab.
2. Click on Options and then select Mail.
3. Under Message format, select Plain Text from the Compose messages in this format drop-down list.
4. Click OK to save the changes.

Vince

Microsoft Community Moderator

Please, read this again, and then tell me you are kidding. Plain text format to achieve something so seemingly simple? Really???

Answer 5

Hello! Sanjana Chowdhury

Thank you for the reply!

Kindly try this one as I have tried it in my Outlook application and it works.

To show only the email address instead of the name of the sender in Outlook application, you can follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook and click on the File tab.
2. Click on Options and then select Mail.
3. Under Message format, select Plain Text from the Compose messages in this format drop-down list.
4. Click OK to save the changes.

If you want to show only the sender’s email address in the message list, you can add the sender to your Outlook contact list.

Please let me know if it works in your end.

Thank you,

Vince

Microsoft Community Moderator

This does not work and the idea of the OP is ABSOLUTELY necessary.