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

Reported
Anonymous
2023-12-01T19:38:31+00:00

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.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Settings

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-06-25T13:44:45+00:00
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  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-21T20:09:42+00:00

    I love that this thread exists. After basically forever being annoyed that I can easily see an email address and just the name, I started looking for information on how to change this view so only the email shows, and behold, there is no way to change this....

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-05-13T12:26:42+00:00

    This I guess proves that MS is in the spam business as well.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-03-22T04:53:14+00:00

    This addin is very helpful for outlook, wish it could auto display in the viewing pane, search for it in the addins, install it, and pin it to your toolbar:
    Message Header Analyzer
    Version 4.0

    Or link here:https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/wa104005406?tab=overview

    Security concerned folks visit the source code here and read the note on permissions: https://github.com/microsoft/MHA

    Thank you @Stephen Griffin

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-12-06T19:08:01+00:00

    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

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