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Is there a way to hide the "Display name" on an outbound email from Microsoft Exchange 2010 or later?

Intelli-Seeker
Intelli-Seeker asked
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We have an Active Directory network 'user' account which runs certain services on one of our servers.  The application and service running via the AD account need to connect to Microsoft Exchange via a specific email account, so we connected the two in Microsoft Exchange.  Unfortunately the result is that the emails sent now contain the display name of the AD account together with the email address in the "from" like this:

AccountDisplayName emailaddress@domain.com

we would like it to just present itself as:

emailaddress@domain.com

How can we accomplish this?
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IvanSystem Engineer

Commented:
Hi,

I guess that would involve email address rewrite, (SMTP Header Rewriting) which is a capability of Exchange Edge role. Not shure if it can be done with out it.

Helpful link: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123966(v=exchg.141).aspx

That is the only thing that comes to my mind atm :)

Regards,
Ivan.
Solutions Architect
Commented:
Oh I'm afraid there is no simple way to do this

I am sure if what Ivan proposed would do the trick, even if it does it is overkill for me to add an edge server just for that reason

A quick solution is to un-tick "Show sender's name on messages" in Default Remote domain "*" (in Org Config>Hub Transport>Remote Domains) and on it's properties, click the message format tab

another way is by using simple display name for external https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/bobh/2010/03/31/using-the-simple-display-name-as-an-external-display-name/ but also affects all users

However this would affect all users,

are you talking about internal or external emails ?

BTW did you try making the application sent thru exchange anonymously ? (without an AD account) if I'm not mistaken that should solve the problem since there is no AD account to resolve to
Intelli-Seeker

Author

Commented:
Ivan, thanks for your suggestion, but we're definitely not interested in building an edge server at this time.

Akhater, Thank you for your suggestions as well.  This is in regard to an email that is being sent to external recipients.
  We can't do the anonymous email origination, as we need the mailbox to receive the replies.
  I'll look into your suggestions and see how they might fit in to our setup.

Thanks again!
AkhaterSolutions Architect

Commented:
you don't need to remove the AD account you can keep it and it can still receive emails, just make the application not use authentication when connecting to exchange and allow relaying to the IP address of this app on exchange
Intelli-Seeker

Author

Commented:
Akhater, that would be great, and is how I normally send other system alert emails, but... unfortunately I don't control how the application speaks to exchange... it is a "packaged system" of which this email feature is a component.
AkhaterSolutions Architect

Commented:
sorry then :(
AkhaterSolutions Architect

Commented:
by the way did you try to simply leave the display name in AD empty ?
Todd NelsonSystems Engineer
Top Expert 2016
Commented:
Couldn't you create mailbox(es) with a generic display name related to the purpose you are sending the messages out (i.e. Newsletter, Donations, etc.)--rather than leaving it blank?
Intelli-Seeker

Author

Commented:
Akhater, Todd,
I tried removing the display name from the account last night.  Oddly enough, now the recipient no longer sees the email address in the friendly display area, all they see is the display name that I deleted?!

I just input an alternative display name - we'll see how that behaves.
Intelli-Seeker

Author

Commented:
Adding an alternative name to the "display name" ended up working without breaking or disrupting the application.  Thanks for the assist!
Intelli-Seeker

Author

Commented:
Thanks everyone for your help.