Bug: Angle-brackets are NOT used in email address format in Contact / Mail, etc

STF413 0 Reputation points
2022-09-03T10:37:00.057+00:00

According to RFC 5322, section 3.4. Address Specification, email addresses must be enclosed between angle-brackets if display names are used together (not necessarily, but for simplicity, let's say it is). In other words, suppose we have an email address abc@def.com and a display name of John Smith, the correct format has to be

John Smith <abc@def.com>

but NOT

John Smith (abc@def.com)

However, the image below shows a bogus contact I created:

237389-bogus-contact.png

Look at Display as field: by default, round-brackets are used instead of angle-brackets. Unless users manually change round-brackets to angle-bracket, this is what we get!

You might say, as long as Outlook is able to send emails, that's not a problem. True. But if we copy-n-paste this string elsewhere, it would cause problem. Compliance to standard guarantees interoperability. That's why it's important to follow standards.

It is worth to notice that if we copy email addresses of from an email (in Outlook), email addresses are enclosed between angle-brackets!

Could someone file a bug report to Microsoft so they correct it, please?

Outlook Management
Outlook Management
Outlook: A family of Microsoft email and calendar products.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  2. Sam of Simple Samples 5,516 Reputation points
    2022-09-03T18:29:02.483+00:00

    Where does RFC 5322 say that an addr-spec must be displayed by an application in angle brackets? I am not aware of anywhere that the RFC requires applications to use any format for displaying anything to the user.

    Have you looked at the headers of messages sent using the address? Post something showing Outlook using a non-standard format when sending a message.

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