Outlook.com sent items show sender not recipient - how can I change the display setting

Anonymous
2012-08-03T11:33:19+00:00

When viewing sent items on outlook.com the items are displayed in a list with the sender name (my name) showing - rather than a list of the recipients. How can I change it to show the recipients. Currently to remember who an email was sent to I have to open it.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Settings

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Anonymous
2013-05-16T01:10:08+00:00

Hi Everyone,

I'm Lanie, a Senior Support Analyst for Microsoft and I am part of Hotmail/Outlook.com Support Escalations Team investigating this case.

We would like to apologize for the delayed response and for the inconvenience that the issue has caused you.

You have reported that your name appears in the recipient’s column instead of the email recipient’s name/address when viewing your sent items using a web browser.

Here are the reasons why this is happening:

  1. If you are using an email client such as Windows Live Mail or Outlook client when sending an email.
  2. If you are importing emails from a third party email account (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo! mail etc.) to your Hotmail/Outlook.com account using TrueSwitch or POP settings, emails from the sent items folder will show your name in recipient’s column.

We understand that you don't want this behavior and you want everything to be synchronized like showing email recipients name in the sent items folder instead of your names when using a web browser. This behavior of Hotmail/Outlook.com is by design. But, we will be taking this concern as a feature request. We appreciate your feedback regarding our product.

For other feedback and suggestions that will help us in improving our product, please visit this link.

If you have other concerns regarding our product Outlook.com, we recommend that you create a new post with regards to your issue. This will help us address your concern in a timely and proper manner. 

I am now  locking this thread.

Thanks!

Lanie

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-09-23T13:51:10+00:00

    Hi ShonaghWood and dwo.r,

    For us to come up with the right resolution, please provide us a screenshot of the issue that you are having on your account. Please follow the steps provided on the links below for you to do the screenshot.

    Choose your operating system:

    **For Vista/Windows 7 - Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshot**

    **For Windows XP - Take a screenshot**

    Please provide us your screenshot in the private message area. To view it, sign in using your Microsoft account.

    Thanks!

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-09-13T08:31:42+00:00

    Hi D

    Glad I'm not the only one having this problem! It was never an issue with the hotmail web interface - only since Outlook update.

    Anyway, I do currently also view my outlook email through Outlook 2010 and it's fine in there. But just bugs me that the web version doesn't work as it should.

    But thanks for replying :-)

    Shonagh

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-09-12T21:35:06+00:00

    Hi Shonagh,

    Yes - it seems we're having the same problem. I won't say that I've lost sleep over this, but I have tried EVERYTHING to get Microsoft's services to play ball with messages sent from other providers (e.g. Yahoo, GMail...).

    The problem seems to be that any messages sent from a different account will always display your name, rather than those of your recipients. Still, I'm surprised if you've just "upgraded" from Hotmail to Outlook and experience the same problem!

    With GMail, one way around this was to add your old accounts as email aliases, which would then resolve a similar problem of all your other sent messages showing as from "me" in your sent folder. Mercifully, the likes of GMX, Yahoo and AOL just work fine without having to find a workaround.

    In my experience, Microsoft doesn't seem to realise how many people are impacted by this problem. In case it helps, the only thing that I can suggest as a (temporary!) solution is to use your account through Outlook 2007 or 2010, which will allow you to customise the display of the "sent" folder to show "to" rather than "from". It's hardly ideal (and makes no difference to the web interface), but maybe better than nothing while we wait for Microsoft to acknowledge and resolve the problem!

    Cheers,

    D.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-09-12T17:39:54+00:00

    Hi

    The messages aren't imported (well, only from hotmail if that counts - it was a hotmail account, converted to outlook)

    The messages are new messages I have sent recently - and as dwo.r mentioned below looks like he's having the same problem.

    It's not that I can't sort the sent messages by 'to' it's that it simply does not display the 'to' name - it only shows my own name (the sender) and not the recipients name.

    I did try and click on the sort by 'to' option in the right hand drop down as suggested - but unable to select it.

    Kind rgds

    Shonagh

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