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

Hello! Sanjana Chowdhury

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community

I understand your concern regarding the display of email addresses in Outlook. Outlook automatically displays the name associated with an email address if it is saved in your contacts. 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." This will display the actual email address instead of the name associated with it.

Regarding the issue you mentioned with the scammer's email address displaying your CEO's name, it is possible that the scammer has spoofed your CEO's email address. This is a common tactic used by scammers to make their emails appear more legitimate. It is important to always verify the sender's email address before responding to any emails, especially if they are requesting sensitive information or money.

I will pass along your feedback regarding this issue to the appropriate team for further review. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Thank you,

Vince

Microsoft Community Moderator

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.

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,

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

Hello! Sanjana Chowdhury

Thank you for your patiently waiting.

I have a word from our internal team regarding of your concern.

The quick answer is that Outlook, and I believe most email services, will show the "friendly name" that is chosen by the user who created the account, that is how things have worked for a long time. This does have a fraud/scam avenue, but one can easily check the true email address by hovering over the identity's profile or name, or by double clicking it to see any related account information including email address.

We have more information on the subject as well as how to spot this kind of email here Protect yourself from phishing - Microsoft Support

If you wants it to appear differently, this is not a bug, this will require you to suggestion this as a feedback in the feedback hub app for the developers to apply the change.

You can follow the steps on how to submit a feedback here: How do I give feedback on Microsoft 365? - Microsoft Support

I hope this helps!

Thank you for patience and understanding.

Best Regards,

Vince
Microsoft Community Moderator