How to setup different email account for each contant?

[someone]

I have two Outlook Contacts or Contacts related questions.
We are using Outlook 2003 with two external POP3 emai providers.

1. Is there any way to setup a Contact so that email messages sent to
her/him, will be handled automatically by a pre-determined email account,
not by the current default email account? There is a field named "E-Mail
Account", but it's not editable. Its value shows the current e-mail account
setup as the default, and changes if the default has changed.

2. Another field that seems to not be editable is the "From" field. Its
contents have different formats though, in messages received from different
or sometimes from the same senders. It can show: "John Doe
[mailto:[email protected]]", "John Doe [[email protected]]",
"(e-mail address removed)" or just "John Doe". Also, when you start to type
"john" in the "To:" field, all the "John something" you ever sent a message
to, with all their different "From" displays, show up in the history
drop-down list. My question on this subject has two parts.
a. Can the "From" field of a Contact be modified to show a desired format
(for example only "John Doe")?
b. Can the "To:" field history be cleared from time to time so that only
current addressees are shown?

Thank you!

 

[Brian Tillman]

1. Is there any way to setup a Contact so that email messages sent to
her/him, will be handled automatically by a pre-determined email
account, not by the current default email account? There is a field
named "E-Mail Account", but it's not editable. Its value shows the
current e-mail account setup as the default, and changes if the
default has changed.
No.

2. Another field that seems to not be editable is the "From" field.

Where do you see this field. Your contacts have no "from", since they are
recipients (i.e., people to whom you send mail), not senders.

Its contents have different formats though, in messages received from
different or sometimes from the same senders. It can show: "John Doe
[mailto:[email protected]]", "John Doe [[email protected]]",
"(e-mail address removed)" or just "John Doe".

If you're speaking about the From field on received mail, then the format of
that field is determined by the sender and you cannot affect its appearance.
It's a totally non-functional field anyway. It doesn't matter what it
contains as it doesn't necessarily reflect the address from which the
message was sent. I could send you a message that appears to come from
"(e-mail address removed)" if I wanted.

Also, when you start to type
"john" in the "To:" field, all the "John something" you ever sent a
message to, with all their different "From" displays, show up in the
history drop-down list.

This is your autocompletion cache, controlled by the "Suggest names when
completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields" checkbox on Tools>Options>E-mail
Options>Advanced E-mail Options dialogue page.

My question on this subject has two parts.
a. Can the "From" field of a Contact be modified to show a desired
format (for example only "John Doe")?

Again, you can't control what other people include in the From field of
messages you send. You can certainly control what your recipients see in
the From field when you send them a message.

b. Can the "To:" field history be cleared from time to time so that
only current addressees are shown?

What do you mean by "current addresses"? Keep in mind that the
autocompletion cache has no connection to your Contacts in any way. All it
contains are the most recent (up to 1,000) addresses to which you have sent
mail. If, when typing in the To field, a name comes up that you don't want,
use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select it and htne press the Delete
key to remove the address. If you want to clear the entire list and start
over, close Outlook and then delete the file whose extension is ".nk2" and
whose file name matches your mail profile name located in the )hidden)
folder %AppData%\Microsoft\Outlook (i.e., C:\Documents and
Settings\yourname\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook)

 

[someone]

Thank you for your explanations Brian!

So there isn't any way to setup which account will be used to send mail to a
particular Contact? Well, that's too bad! There shouldn't be any
difficulty to have an editable field for that, in the Contact Properties
sheet (from a programming point of view).

My question about the "From" field wasn't very clear. I'm sorry about that!
I was asking about editing the "From" field when I send a message. What do
I have to do in Outlook to have my name displayed in the received message as
only "John Doe" instead of "John Doe [mailto:[email protected]], or any
other format. When the e-mail account is setup, you can enter "George W.
Bush" for "Your Name" and "(e-mail address removed)" for "E-Mail
Address", but this is not what I'm asking. All the accounts on our network
are setup exactly the same. However, the "From" field in the received
messages is different from one account to the other and in many cases, the
same account has different formats for the "From" field (in the received
messages). I am talking about internal mail and internal users who are
receiving messages from other internal users, but with the "From" field
having different formats.

Thank you for the tip about the .nk2 file. It's very userful. And thanks
again for all your help!

Al

 

[Brian Tillman]

I am talking about internal mail and internal users who
are receiving messages from other internal users, but with the "From"
field having different formats.

If you're using POP accounts, all your mail is "external", even if it's to
someone else in your domain.

Why do you need to suppress the address portion? It's cosmetic anyway.

 

[someone]

Well, I must have used quotes for "internal"! What I meant by "internal"
mail is mail originating on the local domain. The e-mail originated and
received on the local domain (Windows 2003 Active Directory domain) is
handled by Outlook 2003 email clients. I don't use this particular e-mail
client personally (and I don't plan to use it), but I have to support it on
this network. I have configured the Outlook e-mail clients on all the
workstations, absolutely identical. However, the "From" field in the
received messages displays differently. It displays differently in messages
received, originated inside and outside the local domain. On those
originated on the local domain I have control though and I'd like to know
what happens. Why a message sent from the same e-mail client, displays in
the "From" field when received, "John Doe [mailto:[email protected]]", why
in another message, generated on the same computer and on the same e-mail
client, it displays only "John Doe", or "(e-mail address removed)", or "John Doe
[[email protected]]".

Why do I need to know this? Because it bothers me!! Is there an
explanation for it?

Thanks for continuing the "conversation" Brian!

Al

 

[Brian Tillman]

Why a message sent from the same e-mail client, displays in
the "From" field when received, "John Doe
[mailto:[email protected]]", why in another message, generated on
the same computer and on the same e-mail client, it displays only
"John Doe", or "(e-mail address removed)", or "John Doe
[[email protected]]".

Why do I need to know this? Because it bothers me!! Is there an
explanation for it?

I have some ideas, but I'll have to see if they prove true before advancing
them.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I have some ideas, but I'll have to see if they prove true before
advancing them.

Alas, they didn't pan out. At this point, I'm at a loss to explain the
differences.