Sender name not showing in Outlook. Using FluentSMTP and a contact form

Question

Sender name not showing in Outlook. Using FluentSMTP and a contact form

Amanda 0

Hello, I can't get sender name to show up in Outlook. I have a contact form set up on a WordPress site and I'm using FluentSMTP conntected to Outlook. Has anyone had this issue and fixed it? Thanks.

I have already tried view and reset view.

3 answers

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Answer 1

Please note that Q&A forum is a public platform, and moderators will modify the question to hide personal information in the description. Kindly ensure that you hide any personal or organizational information the next time you post an error or other details to protect personal data.

Hello Amanda, thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

From this point forward, I’ll be taking over from Austin to assist you directly in this thread, and I apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Based on your description and my research, this behavior is expected with Microsoft 365 / Exchange. Outlook and Exchange typically resolve the sender display name to the default display name of the mailbox that actually sends the message, and they do not reliably honor a dynamically set “From” display name on a per‑message basis.

This behavior has been reported for many years and still applies in many scenarios, as discussed here: Display sender name as set in message header, instead of full name from address book

Important: This link will take you to Stackoverflow , which is outside Microsoft’s domain. Please note that Microsoft is not responsible for the accuracy, security, or advertising on external sites.

In my own testing using WordPress with FluentSMTP via the Microsoft (Outlook/Office 365) API connection, I observed the same behavior described in that thread. Even after changing the sender name in the message configuration, the Outlook inbox continued to show the display name configured on the Microsoft 365 sending account, rather than the custom name.

While I don’t currently have Divi available to test the exact contact form behavior, your symptoms align closely with what we typically see with Microsoft 365 / Exchange. In this case, the solution is more workaround‑based, as there is no reliable setting to force Outlook to display a different sender name per message.

Update the Divi contact form Subject to include the submitter’s name (and optionally company/email), for example: Contact form - {Name} - {Company} This makes the messages easy to identify in the message list and easy to filter/search with Outlook rules.
Turn on Message Preview in Classic Outlook so the first line(s) of the email body appear in the list view (handy if your email body starts with “Name: …”). You can do this from View > Message Preview and choose how many lines to show.

I hope this helps clarify the behavior you’re seeing. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Gabriel-N 14,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-02-20T12:57:38.9033333+00:00

Hello Amanda,

Just writing to see how things are going with this issue.

Have you had a chance to check the replies provided?

Any update would be appreciated.
Amanda 0 Reputation points

2026-02-20T13:11:32.4766667+00:00

Hello Gabriel,

We are going to try and fix this issue and test it tomorrow and I will let you know. Divi don't think it's an issue on their end.

Thank you.
Gabriel-N 14,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-02-23T07:35:40.5666667+00:00

Hello Amanda,

Thank you for the update. I just wanted to check in and see how the testing went, and whether there are any results or updates you’re able to share at this stage.

Thanks again, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Gabriel-N 14,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-02-24T07:50:43.15+00:00

Hello Amanda,

Is there any update from you?

If yes, please feel free to let me know.

Answer 2

Austin-H 8,335 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Amanda , thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A forum.
User's image

Do you mean "sender name" here like the screenshot I provided? You would like it to show up as "Microsoft <......@microsoft(.)com>" or Microsoft?
Please specify more about what you expected it to be.

Amanda 0 Reputation points

2026-02-19T07:45:17.8233333+00:00

Hello Austin, when someone replies via the contact form on the website, I would like it to come through with the sender's name and not from the name of the contact form, although the sender's name is in the body of the email. So in you screenshot, Microsoft is the sender and that looks correct but the issue we are having is, in the inbox, it's just showing a list, from, i.e. Contact form

Contact form

Contact form

and I can't actually see who the sender is without opening up the email so then it's hard to filter the emails sent via the contact form. I don't know if this is an issue with setting in Outlook, Fluent SMTP or Divi contact form.

[Moderator note: personal info removed]

Answer 3

If the sender name is not showing in Outlook when using FluentSMTP with a contact form, it may be related to how the email is being formatted or sent. Here are a few things you can check:

SMTP Address Format: Ensure that the email is being sent in the correct format. The display name should be included in the format "display-name" <email-address>. If the display name is not set correctly, Outlook may default to showing the email address instead.
Email Headers: Check the email headers to see if the From field is correctly populated with the display name. If it shows only the email address, it indicates that the display name is not being sent properly.
FluentSMTP Settings: Review the settings in FluentSMTP to ensure that the sender's name is configured correctly. There may be options to specify the display name that should appear in the emails sent through the contact form.
Testing with Different Email Clients: Sometimes, the issue may be specific to Outlook. Test the emails in different email clients to see if the display name appears correctly elsewhere.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, consider reaching out to FluentSMTP support or checking their documentation for further assistance.

References:

SMTP Addresses

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Sender name not showing in Outlook. Using FluentSMTP and a contact form

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