Sorting emails by email address & alias

[Huckleberry]

I hate the way Outlook handles the "To" & "From" fields and aliases in
the inbox and sent items folders. There are different aliases used
for the same email address. It is quite difficult to find all the
email sent or received from a particular person or email address. I
can do a search, but that is quite slow.

I also correspond with some people from China. Their aliases come out
as non-sense characters.

Is there some way to get the same alias used for all occurrences of
the same email address?
Is there a way to change the alias used for all occurrences of a given
email address.

Thanks for any help.

Huck

 

[Brian Tillman]

I hate the way Outlook handles the "To" & "From" fields and aliases in
the inbox and sent items folders. There are different aliases used
for the same email address. It is quite difficult to find all the
email sent or received from a particular person or email address. I
can do a search, but that is quite slow.

I also correspond with some people from China. Their aliases come out
as non-sense characters.

Is there some way to get the same alias used for all occurrences of
the same email address?
Is there a way to change the alias used for all occurrences of a given
email address.

Are they your aliases or aliases of the account your senders is using? If
the former, and you control the server, you can make as many aliases as you
wish, but Outlook will not be able to treat them as separate accounts. You
can always use a "with specific words in the headers" rule to sort them out
on incoming messages. If you don't control the server, you'll have to speak
with whomever does (your ISP, perhaps).

If they're aliases your sender is using, there's no way to you to influence
them at all.

 

[Huckleberry]

Brian,

thank you for the response.

Regarding aliases that are created on my computer, for example the
alias used when I add a new person to my address book, can I change
the alias? Can I change all instances of it for past messages? That
is, if I change an alias, then I assume that the change will be
reflected in future messages that I send, but will it also change the
alias in sent messages?

I get so frustrated with this aspect of Outlook. It seems the like
the most incredibly stupid design. If the aliases are so unreliable
and unchangeable it would be much better to have the "To" field and
the "From" field simply use the email address. As it is, I have
messages that come from (or go to) a single email address but which
may show up under 1, 2 or even 4 different aliases. In additional to
normal aliases, some of them are nonsense characters!!

I can't believe some software "guru" came up with this design.

Please excuse me if the tone of this sounds severe, I usually try not
to be so straightforward in such situations.

Thanks again for responding.

If you have any other ideas please let me know.

Huck

 

[Brian Tillman]

Regarding aliases that are created on my computer, for example the
alias used when I add a new person to my address book, can I change
the alias?

You'll have to tell me what you mean by "alias" here. The usual definition
of aliases are multiple email addresses that all point to the same mailbox
on the server. Clearly, you have no idea whether or not your contact's mail
addresses are aliases.

Can I change all instances of it for past messages? That
is, if I change an alias, then I assume that the change will be
reflected in future messages that I send, but will it also change the
alias in sent messages?

Until I know what yuo mean by "alias", I won't be able to answer this.

 

[Huckleberry]

When you add a new contact there is a place for the email address and
a field called "Display As". When you look at your "inbox", the
"from" field does not show the email address the message is from, it
shows the "Display As" (which I called Alias). However, as I noted,
the same email address can have many different "Display As" names for
the same email address. This is extremely annoying. I have cases
where there are 4 different "Display As" names for a single email
address. If I want to find all items "from" that particular email
address, I have to remember or find all 4 "Display As" names. That
seems downright stupid (I hope you will excuse my expressed
annoyance). As far as I can tell, I can't change that column (the
from column) to be sorted just on the email address and I can't change
the "Display As" names so that a given email address only has one
name. In addition, on emails I receive from China, they often have a
"Display As" that is not any known character and displays as nonsense.

The same problems apply in the "outbox".

I would be eternally grateful for any solution to this problem.

Thanks,

Huck

 

[Brian Tillman]

When you add a new contact there is a place for the email address and
a field called "Display As". When you look at your "inbox", the
"from" field does not show the email address the message is from, it
shows the "Display As" (which I called Alias).

Actually, when you receive a message, it doesn't show what _you_ have as the
"Display As" for the person, it shows the contents of the From or Sender
header the user's mail client included. For example, the From header might
be

From: "Joe Smith and Company" (e-mail address removed)

and you'll see "Joe Smiths and Company" in the from line of your message.
In any event, what you see if controlled by the sender's client, not
anything you have in your Contacts.

However, as I noted,
the same email address can have many different "Display As" names for
the same email address. This is extremely annoying.

Nonetheless, it's up to the sender.

I have cases
where there are 4 different "Display As" names for a single email
address. If I want to find all items "from" that particular email
address, I have to remember or find all 4 "Display As" names. That
seems downright stupid (I hope you will excuse my expressed
annoyance). As far as I can tell, I can't change that column (the
from column) to be sorted just on the email address and I can't change
the "Display As" names so that a given email address only has one
name.

I think I agree that it would be nice to be able to have Outlook display the
actual mail address in the From header. Note, however, that there doesn't
even have to be ANYTHING in the From header. That header doesn't even have
to be included in the message. It might be impossible for Outlook (or any
mail client, for that matter) to show you the mail address, since it may not
be included.

In addition, on emails I receive from China, they often have a
"Display As" that is not any known character and displays as nonsense.

Nonsense? Probably not. It probably was Chinese, but since you and the
sender used difference character set encodings you don't see what was sent.

 

[Huckleberry]

Thanks Brian for these clarifications.

What's the best suggestion you have as to how I can find all the
messages from 1 email address?
All the messages sent to 1 email address?

Thanks,

Huck

 

[Brian Tillman]

What's the best suggestion you have as to how I can find all the
messages from 1 email address?
All the messages sent to 1 email address?

A search folder would work (I teested it), but since I don't see where
you've mentioned your Outlook version, I can't say whether or not your
Outlook supports search folders. You need OL 2003/2007.

Advanced Find should also work.

 

[Huckleberry]

Hi Brian,

I have Outlook 2002.
Does that mean it won't work for me?

Huck

 

[Brian Tillman]

I have Outlook 2002.
Does that mean it won't work for me?

Outlook 2002 does have search folders, but it does have Advanced Find and
that should work.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Outlook 2002 does have search folders,

That should say "doesn't".