Forum Discussion
Outlook/Office 365 loads wrong display name on To: field.
Hi Community,
This is an annoying problem that has been happening where I work. It's not critical, but would be good to be able to fix it.
We use Office 365 and have Outlook installed on all user PCs (win7). When typing the destination email/name on To: field, you will see the correct name [Berni..] and email [accounts@..] on the autocompletion list (picture outlook_01.png). However, after hitting <Enter> it will fetch a wrong name [Rachel..] (from the former employee that used that email, but no longer belongs to our organization) (picture outlook_02.png).
If you double-click the name [Rachel..] (picture outlook_03.png) you'll see that both name and email are actually correct. Just the display name that its messed up. If you send the email, it will go to the right mailbox as well.
What I want to accomplish: To see the proper name [Berni..] on the To: field after selecting the mail item from the autocomplete list.
What I tried to do so far:
- local contacts overriding global contacts: checked but it's not the case, and the problem is happening on multiple computers
- user profile on O365 admin panel/ exchange: checked, no evident problems. (picture outlook_04.png the forum only allows 3 attachments)
- deleted autocompletion entries (single and everything). The same thing happens.
I'm thinking of deleting the mailbox and creating it again, but
1) There will be no fun
2) I would need to backup everything before. As it's a huge mailbox (and it will take a lot of time to do that), I'm hoping that a good soul out there with a trick under their sleeve would suggest me a better approach to fix the problem.
Please let me know if you need any other info and thanks in advance for any replies.
Cheers! :-)
I think I see this. It is a problem of the autocomplete file (.nk2). In the "To" box, when it shows name, there will be an "X" to the right in that box. Click on that "X" and the entry is deleted from the autocomplete file so the name no longer shows up.
Rafael Rosa Have the administrator create a new mailbox for the user. Export the old mail they need access to into a PST then dump it into the new mailbox. Then delete the old mailbox all together. Now email addresses and such are cached so your still going to have annoying idiosyncrasies. However if it was done this way to begin with or just giving the new user full access to the old users mailbox, you wouldn't be having the issue you are having now. It might be best to just deal with it or recreate your profile.
SirJonnyB Thank you very much for your instructions. I will try it out and post my outcome.
Rafael Rosa solved: Has been bugging me for more than a year. Happens because of linked contacts. go to "Contacts", find the entry for the name showing up incorrectly, and remove the incorrect linked entries.
option to Link appears only under the three dots on the pane to the right of the screen
abacus000 Hi I am, having the same issue but with only 2 of my users. Is it possible that only those 2 users linked that same contact with the wrong name? Sorry let me explain a little bit, 2 of my users when typing my name (example) in the To section get the correct email and picture but wrong display name. I have checked other staff members and they display the correct name for me. Now the display name that appears for me is the staff member that use to have my position that is no longer here.
RainerNation20 Try downloading the offline address book on those two computers.
>> the staff member that use to have my position that is no longer here.
That is why it is happening.
In the hopes that this helps someone else...
My issue was caused by an Outlook Contact originally created by opening the address book, opening the contact, and clicking the Add to Contacts button (and) that user's email address being added to his manager's Exchange account after he left the company. Even though ALL email addresses had been removed from the contact, the manager kept showing in Outlook & Skype for Business as the old employee. I ended up deleting the old employee's contact from my Outlook Contacts to resolve the issue. I was able to re-create the Outlook Contact after without re-creating the issue. I hope this helps someone.
I was having an issue, that I believe, is the same thing. We had someone leave the company and had their email FWD to a manager for the time being. The problem was that when someone would send an email to the manager, his name would not auto-pop but instead the name of the EX employee would.
(BTW we use office 365 and have downloaded outlook, when using the webmail the issue does not occur. Date is 9/2019)
I solved this by:
1. Open outlook and click "New Message"
2. Start typing in the name of the account that has been convoluted [in my case, this was the managers name]3. Once the name is complete press enter, (in my version, it will be underscored to show that it is the completed name) hover over the name w the mouse and a pop-up window will appear w the name in it
4. In the window, you should have some icons at the bottom, click on the three dots
5. This will open a 'drop down' style menu, click the option Link Contacts
6. This new window will show you the name of the culprit (In my case the EX employee's name was in the list) click the red X beside the name you do not want to be connected to the account
7. Click OK. I closed and reopened outlook for good measure.
And that solved the issue for me 🙂
Rafael Rosa- You are a life saver. Its solved. Thank you.. 👌
I'd tried every other solution on this thread. This is the one that worked. That Linked Contact. I have no idea how those links are created, but deleting those links to the wrong contact card worked. THANK YOU!!!!!
This is also not specific to Exchange - it's part of the Recent Addresses Autocomplete System built into the local version of Outlook. If you fix it at the exchange level, that will help, but it still may be in the local autocomplete database.
Unfortunately, Outlook for the Mac does not have a way to delete, clean or deactivate the autocomplete system link the PC version does! Microsoft has always lagged on features for the Mac - even though we pay the EXACT same amount for the software as PC users - but that's for a different discussion!
On the Mac, if you want to completely delete the file manually, it can be found here:
Outlook 2016 for Mac:
\Users\<username>\Library\Group Containers\UBF8T346G9.Office\Outlook\Outlook 15 Profiles\<Profiles name>\Data\Recent Addresses\<DataStore>\
Outlook for Mac 2011:
\Users\<username>\Documents\Microsoft User Data\Office 2011 Identities\<Identity Name>\Data Records\Recent Addresses\<DataStore>\I wish MS would just allow us to remove the Names and use the email address only when autocompleting the address.
ChrisSgaraglino
They have a tool available now. Found it a few weeks ago when troubleshooting a Mac user: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/fixes-or-workarounds-for-recent-issues-in-outlook-for-mac-54afa5e3-db38-422a-9d94-3b55330ded8e
Scroll down to Automated troubleshooting tools - Reset Recent Addresses
ChrisSgaraglino wrote:This is also not specific to Exchange - it's part of the Recent Addresses Autocomplete System built into the local version of Outlook. If you fix it at the exchange level, that will help, but it still may be in the local autocomplete database.
Unfortunately, Outlook for the Mac does not have a way to delete, clean or deactivate the autocomplete system link the PC version does! Microsoft has always lagged on features for the Mac - even though we pay the EXACT same amount for the software as PC users - but that's for a different discussion!
On the Mac, if you want to completely delete the file manually, it can be found here:
Outlook 2016 for Mac:
\Users\<username>\Library\Group Containers\UBF8T346G9.Office\Outlook\Outlook 15 Profiles\<Profiles name>\Data\Recent Addresses\<DataStore>\
Outlook for Mac 2011:
\Users\<username>\Documents\Microsoft User Data\Office 2011 Identities\<Identity Name>\Data Records\Recent Addresses\<DataStore>\I wish MS would just allow us to remove the Names and use the email address only when autocompleting the address.
That's pretty easy for a PC or a Mac, but what if this issue only shows on a mobile device or in Outlook web? We don't see this issue on the desktop, just on a smartphone or when logged into outlook.com. Kind of makes the fix that much more complicated it seems.
I found our issue. We have a hybrid exchange on prem and O365 email server. And email contacts are the place that was getting other names on the contact card in email. It was a head scratcher for sure. If the contact you try to email shows the wrong name. Check for any other email aliases on the users mailbox. See example. This is a Sales Mgr, and when Sales folks left his department, we would add aliases in case current deals wear being emailed to ex-employee and mgr can take the sale and continue the process. We removed the Alias of the oldest employee been over 30 days. And this started to show properly again after a forced sync.
I think I found the solution!
The issue with Outlook displaying the incorrect name is a failure of the Offline Global Address Book to properly update with the Display Name settings on Office 365 Website.
Here is the solution from start to finish:
Step 1) Login to Office 365 website as a Global Administrator
Step 2) In the "Admin Center" select "Users"
Step 3) Change the Display Name and Aliases.
Step 4) Log out of Website
Step 5) Open Outlook Program
Step 6) Go to File-> Info -> Accounting Settings (drop-down)-> Account Settings
Step 7) Double click on account with incorrect display name
Step 8) Uncheck box "Use Cached Exchange Mode to download email to an Outlook data file"
Step 9) Hit Next, then Finish
Step 10) Restart Outlook
You can go back and select the box again if you want. Hope this works for you guys. Here is a Microsoft article that I found once I knew what to look for: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2429946/how-to-troubleshoot-the-outlook-offline-address-book-in-an-office-365
AWHolmes wrote:I think I found the solution!
The issue with Outlook displaying the incorrect name is a failure of the Offline Global Address Book to properly update with the Display Name settings on Office 365 Website.
Here is the solution from start to finish:
Step 1) Login to Office 365 website as a Global Administrator
Step 2) In the "Admin Center" select "Users"
Step 3) Change the Display Name and Aliases.
Step 4) Log out of Website
Step 5) Open Outlook Program
Step 6) Go to File-> Info -> Accounting Settings (drop-down)-> Account Settings
Step 7) Double click on account with incorrect display name
Step 8) Uncheck box "Use Cached Exchange Mode to download email to an Outlook data file"
Step 9) Hit Next, then Finish
Step 10) Restart Outlook
You can go back and select the box again if you want. Hope this works for you guys. Here is a Microsoft article that I found once I knew what to look for: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2429946/how-to-troubleshoot-the-outlook-offline-address-book-in-an-office-365
AWHolmes this worked for me....thanks
Hi,
We are facing the same issue as well. Any solutions?
Also having the same issues. We primarily use OWA as our email application and we use an O365 Exchange cloud service (no local mail server).
I had this same issue and have managed to fix it as follows. I'm going from memory here but you should get the idea.
Open Outlook.
Open the Address Book (Ctrl Shift B)
Find old employee name and double-click to open
Select add to contact list button
This immediately came up with the new person's details!
Hit Update button
Fixed!
Graham
Graham Boast This is the answer.
Graham BoastThis worked for me! This was Outlook365 with an IMAP account.
