Outlook.com and sending email from Aliases

Mail
1

For anyone using Outlook.com and Alias addresses.  I hope this helps someone, as I just went through this headache with Microsoft.

There IS NO WAY to send an email addressed “FROM” any of your additional Alias addresses in Outlook.com.   Not from third-party software, Not from ANY Android or iPhone email applications…not even Outlook (PC) 2007 or 2003.  NONE of them can do this.  It has nothing to do with EM Client. 

It is a basic function of the Outlook.com service and the way Microsoft built it.   The ONLY way to send email from an alias address is by logging into the website through a browser.  Otherwise, all email are automatically “sent” from your default address.  I’ve tested this over and over for weeks and is confirmed by an Outlook.com service manager I dealt with.

As for Microsoft, Outlook.com, and the aliases…yet another example of how they totally SCREWED it up.  Aliases are absolutely worthless based on this but Microsoft doesn’t see it as an issue to be corrected.

At least using EM Client can help this situation in a way no other client or app can… 

Set up the Outlook.com website as a WIDGET.   It stays open and allows me to send an email “directly” from the website.  The only down-side is that CUT and PASTE functions don’t work.

Hope this helps

2

Hello, thank you for sharing this workaround, unfortunately you’re correct, outlook.com addresses are forced to use the original email address even if an alias is selected. We’re still reviewing this issue, hopefully we’ll be able to improve the problem in future by using IMAP for mail services on outlook.com/hotmail/live accounts.

3

You’re welcome.  I hope this helps others that have the same issue. 

Good luck with solving it however.  I talked with a service rep and a technical support rep from MS, both indicated that this is how it was built and is supposed to be that way.  When I pointed out that this makes Aliases rather pointless for anyone that needs their email on mobile devices , etc.  …they were either purposely deflecting the discussion, playing dumb or really were clueless. 

I mentioned in the first post that the limitation on sending alias emails existed for all third-party software, older versions of Outlook, and ALL Android and iPhone email apps.  What I failed to point out…is that the same holds true for Microsoft’s own “Official” Outlook.com and Outlook Apps (on Android for sure and reportedly iPhone too).  They didn’t even build their own apps to send Alias email for their own service.  Kind of mind-blowingly stupid.

Anyway, Thanks you for listening and good luck.  G

4

Paul,

A couple more things then I’ll leave this alone. 

I’m guessing that the ActiveSync that Microsoft uses for Outlook.com is based on Exchange Server.  For one, Microsoft as a company is always struggling with legacy thinking and design.  Two, this issue with Outlook.com behaves exactly like email accounts on an Exchange Server.  A couple of years ago, to get better data connectivity between Android and PC, I tested two hosted Exchange Server services.  What I discovered (and finally the tech support confirmed), was that no matter what accounts and addresses I had mail coming in from, all my sent and replied email  were “Sent” from the one primary, default address. 

Exchange Server was built for Enterprise use, and in a traditional company, everyone has a single address, and exist only once in the system.  That’s the legacy thinking…   Ultimately I dropped the idea for that very reason.  Appears to me that there’s a link between the two, and if that’s true, they aren’t going to rework Exchange Server or the core of Active Sync on which it was based…

(Side note…is it me or does it appear that MS is abandoning TASKS?  It’s still in PC Outlook, but Outlook.com’s tasks are pathetic, useless and don’t sync with anything except SOME Windows Phones.  Web Access Outlook (365) also has them, but again they don’t sync with anything.  So on, and so on.)

And finally, A question for you out of curiosity.  How is EM Client built and the UI function?  It’s not a standard Windows program in that it isn’t using any of the Windows framework files, graphics, bitmaps or DLLs.  There is almost nothing installed on the PC and certainly no graphics files that are being used.

Having done a great deal of alterations to Firefox and it’s “skin”, the EM Client theme XML files are similar to the CSS files used for the Firefox UI.  I’ve theorized that EM Client works in a similar way, that the UI is built out of HTML and CSS code (or something similar), which is why it’s so lightweight and seems to handle web-based services so well.  It’s a fancy browser…

Did I guess right or am I hell the way off?  Like I said, just curious.

Have a good week.

5

Hello again, I will be more than glad to provide a short overview of the application’s core. eM Client is developed using the .NET framework which is using some of the Internet Explorer’s core features including browser features - one of the latest browser features has been the implementation of OAuth for Google accounts - clipboard management, scripting capabilities etc. In my humble opinion it’s not such a fancy browser - definitely not that fancy yet, since we’re using IE. However we’d like to move to use of Chromium/WebKit in near future as with IE we’ve hit certain limitations that don’t always allow us to resolve all the needed bugs and issues.

As you said yourself, the UI of the application is mostly defined by the XML file, so not really CSS nor HTML (but kind of both too), but even the UI will be a subject of change in near future as we’re already working on the eM Client 7 that we’d like to release in Summer, personally I could say this can be one of our most important releases yet.

As to Outlook.com features, can’t really tell what is behind their support of Tasks, but it might be the fact Exchange allows more sophisticated users get a hold of the more commercial applicable features, including tasks, as I can imagine them thinking something inbetween the lines of “A regular user, will be able to use the calendar instead”, but who knows, maybe they also have something in works, also Gmail’s implementation of Tasks isn’t the best either and it’s features are limited.

Hope this helps.

6

Thank you for the response and information.

I work with graphics a lot in my work, have been teaching myself simple HTML and CSS, and have been fascinated with computer and smartphone UI’s.  I’ve completely themed and “hacked” Windows 7, replacing framework files, .DLL’s and such.  re-skinned my Firefox browser, and created all new icons for my PC.  My Android (running a varient called MIUI from Xiaomi) has also been completely re-skinned, plus I’ve made more icon sets than I can use.

You can see a portion of things I’ve done on my DeviantArt page.  http://glange65.deviantart.com/
(in case it is filtered, search for GLange65 on DeviantArt)

If I can help or provide any icons or graphics, let me know.  It’s a hobby and I enjoy doing it.

Best of luck.