If you use email a lot during your workday, it’s important to make Outlook work the way you need it to. Even small changes can make a big difference in helping your day run more smoothly. One helpful tip is learning how to change a contact name in Outlook so that it displays the way you prefer when you’re writing or receiving emails.
At the start of a new year, many people like to get more organised and improve their daily workflow. Making small updates—like fixing how contact names appear—can save time and reduce mistakes. Outlook stores contact details like names, email addresses, and phone numbers. But sometimes a contact has more than one email address, such as work, personal, or a Gmail account used for sign-ups or promotions.
A common problem I see during training sessions is how Outlook sometimes only shows a person’s name in the “To” field, without clearly showing which email address it’s using. This can be confusing if the contact has several addresses saved. Being able to quickly see both the name and the email address can help you make sure your message goes to the right place—without needing to open the contact card every time.
In this post, I’ll show you how to change the contact name in Outlook so you can see both the name and email address more clearly when sending or receiving emails.
To change the display of a contact name, follow these steps:
- Open Microsoft Outlook.
- Select People icon from the Navigation Pane or press Ctrl + 3 on the keyboard:
- Within the People area locate the contact you wish to adjust the display setting for and double-click to open the contact card.
- The Contact Card will be displayed:
- Click in the Display as field located under the Email field.
- This field determines how you see this contact’s name displayed in an email message.
- If you want to include the email address alongside the name, simply highlight the current content (usually the email address) and press Delete.
- Now press the Tab key on the keyboard to move the cursor OUT of the field. Outlook will automatically fill the field with the person’s name and email address in brackets:
- Click Save and Close.
- Return to the Mail section of Outlook using the Navigation Pane or press Ctrl + 1 on the keyboard.
- Press Ctrl + N to create a new mail message.
- Type the person’s name into the To field and press Ctrl + K to perform a Check Name.
- The contact’s name should now be displayed with the email address included:
- Fill in the remaining sections of your email message and send when completed
I hope this provides a little time saver for your day.
Did you know about the shortcut keys I mention in this article? Click here to see my favourite shortcut keys in Outlook.
If you like customising Outlook to work better for you, try the following articles:
- Using AutoCorrect within Microsoft Office,
- stay updated on your favourite websites by adding an RSS feed to Outlook, and
- don’t forget that you can create your own distribution list in Microsoft Outlook.
8 Responses
This is a couple years old, but I hope you can still help. I am driving co-workers crazy because when they receive an email from me, they only see the email address. I have my contacts set-up to display as Name and Email. I cannot find anything the discusses what others see, only what you see in your email. Is there a reason why recipients of an email would not see the name and email like I see? I work for the different company as my co-workers. I’m not sure if that would make a difference or not. Everyone from this one company only sees an email address. The email addresses for some do not have any initial or last name in it. This is what causes the confusion, they have to search out who the email has been sent to. Thanks for any info you could give.
Hi Alana,
This is a common issue. It is actually not to do with how you have configured your contacts to be displayed. It is actually part of your email configuration. Open Outlook and go to File tab and you should see your Account Information screen. Click the Account Settings button and choose Account Name and Sync Settings. In there you have a field for “Your Name” – it is likely that is set to your actual email address, change it to be your first and last name exactly how you want it to be displayed in the FROM section of your email. Click Next then click Done.
Hope this helps.
Belinda
Using Outlook 365, when I type in the name, it always shows only the name without the email address even though I have updated the “display as” field. I’ve been doing that for 25 years for the same reasons you highlight. Any others suggestions?
When you start typing the name and it shows the list of options, click the X next to the contacts details which do not display the email address. Close the email message and try again and it should hopefully refresh.
For the reasons you mention, I love seeing the email recipient’s name as well as their email address — especially for those people for whom I have multiple email addresses!
Is it possible to set the default to always include the name and email address?
Since I prefer to always see both, a default setting would save manual effort,
Thanks,
John
Did you get this default resolved, John? I am looking for just that.
I have fond that if I enter an email address in the Contact’s Email field and then tab to the DisplayAs field, then it inserts the email address only. However if I ten delete everything in the Display As field (leaving it blank) and then tab out of that field, then it auto-fills with exactly what I want, which is Fullname (email-address)
I would like to do just the opposite–show only the contact’s name in the Display As. Hopefully, I can re-engineer your instructions above. But if you’d be willing to tell me how to do it, I would be most appreciative!
Hi Marlyn,
In the Display As field, simply delete out the email address leaving just the contacts name in the field. Save and close and then you should just have the name displayed.
Thanks, Belinda