Send from Alias in Office 365

Microsoft listened and added support to send from alias address in Office 365/Microsoft 365. However, the Send as Alias feature will only work for Exchange Online mailboxes and does not work for Exchange on-premises mailboxes. This article will show how to enable Send from Alias feature in the Microsoft 365 tenant. Also, how to send email as alias in Outlook and Outlook on the web.

Introduction

Many users ask how to send from an alias address. That’s most of the time the first question they ask after the service desk tells them that they did create an alias address for them. Unfortunately, the answer from the service desk to the users is that the purpose of the alias address is to receive and not to send from.

Note: An Alias is also known as a proxy address or secondary SMTP address.

Microsoft did listen to the feedback, and they did implement that feature in Office 365/Microsoft 365. The users can send as alias, after enabling the send as alias feature in the Microsoft 365 tenant.

This means that you don’t have to create new mailboxes and map them to the user mailbox so they can send from that mailbox. Another benefit is that an alias address doesn’t count for a license, which helps to reduce costs.

Note: The send from alias address feature in Microsoft 365 is turned off by default, and you have to enable that manually.

Check Aliases in Office 365

Sign in to Microsoft 365 admin center. Click on Users > Active users. Select the user to check their aliases.

In our example, the primary email is Jack.Taylor@exoip.com, and the alias that we will send from is vacation@exoip.com.

Do you like to export all SMTP aliases? Read the article List all SMTP addresses with PowerShell.

How to enable Send as Alias in Office 365

To enable send from alias address in Office 365, go through these three steps.

1. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell

Start PowerShell as administrator and Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

PS C:\> Connect-ExchangeOnline

2. Enable Send from Alias in Microsoft 365 tenant

Run the Set-OrganizationConfig cmdlet, including the -SendFromAliasEnabled parameter to enable Send as Alias in the Microsoft 365 tenant.

PS C:\> Set-OrganizationConfig -SendFromAliasEnabled $True

Note: Suppose you want to turn off Send from Alias feature in Office 365, change the value $True to $False.

3. Verify Send from Alias status

Check that the feature Send from Alias is enabled in the Microsoft 365 organization.

PS C:\> Get-OrganizationConfig | ft Name, SendFromAliasEnabled

Name                     SendFromAliasEnabled
----                     --------------------
exoip365.onmicrosoft.com                 True

It can take 5 minutes to 1 hour before the change takes effect in the organization. So don’t immediately start to send emails using an alias address.

Send from Alias in Outlook

To send from alias address in Outlook, go through the below steps.

Start Outlook application. Click on New Email.

Click on Options > From. This will show the From field in Outlook.

Click on From > Other Email Address…

Fill in the Alias address. Click OK.

The From field will change to the alias address. Write a subject, message and send the email.

In our example, the primary email is Jack.Taylor@exoip.com, and the mail is sent from the alias vacation@exoip.com.

The email arrives and shows that the alias vacation@exoip.com sent the email.

Clicking on the reply button shows the alias address vacation@exoip.com.

Send from Alias in Outlook on the web

To send from alias in Outlook on the web, go through the below steps.

Sign in to Outlook on the web. Click on New message > … > Show From. This will show the From field in Outlook web.

Click on From > Other Email Address…

Fill in the Alias address. Then, write a subject, message and send the email.

In our example, the primary email is Jack.Taylor@exoip.com, and the mail is sent from the alias vacation@exoip.com.

The email arrives and shows that the alias vacation@exoip.com sent the email.

Clicking on the reply button shows the alias address vacation@exoip.com.

That’s it!

Read more: Add tag to external emails in Microsoft 365 for extra security »

Conclusion

You learned how to enable send from alias in Office 365. By default, the Send from Alias feature is not enabled. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell and turn on the feature Send from Alias. After that, inform the users that they can send from alias.

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