Question: I sent an email last week to somebody just fine, but today when I sent a new email the To: field shows their email in the following format 'name@company.com'
It looks like single quotes were added around the email address, although this hasn't happened before. Would this affect the delivery of the mail? I'm just wondering what the single quotes mean, on my outlook app on mobile they aren't there.
Answer: The single quotes usually mean (in Outlook) that the email address is not in your contacts folder. The quotes are ignored when sending so no worries from that side. However, at times Outlook does not ignore the single quotes and adds the single quote to the email-address inplace of the email-address's name. Such email have delivery, sending issues like timeout, syntax errors or bounced back messages.
Single Quotes are added by Outlook's Auto-Correct or Auto-Complete features. You can disable or correct the auto-quoting behavior in Microsoft Outlook if you want:
In the Outlook Options dialog box (File > Options), click on the Mail tab at the left, and then click on the Editor Options button (at the right).
In the Editor Options dialog box, select AutoCorrect Options.
In the AutoCorrect dialog box, do the following:
Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and under Replace as you type, select or clear the 'Straight quotes' with “smart quotes” checkbox.
Note: If you're using Macros, this is an issue with your macro. If there's any code in your macro that notes an email to be sent on behalf of another address, sometimes Outlook will break and won't allow the emails to be sent.
Query: I have replied to emails where the single quote was taken literally and the email bounced. After correcting it, it was fine.
Query Clarification:
If Outlook is just displaying it as 'name@company.com' but sending to name@company.com the email is sent and delivery is fine.
If the quotes are literally part of the email address, so that SMTP sees <'name@company.com'>, email servers will reject it and you’ll get a bounce or a timeout.
Query: Does Gmail, Outlook.com accept emails for delivery that have TO email addresses specified in the format <'name@company.com'> or <'name@company.com> ?
Query Response: The format <'name@company.com'> is generally not valid and may be rejected. Email addresses must conform to the proper syntax, which requires the use of standard characters within the angle brackets (if used) without additional single quotes surrounding the email address itself.
References:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322
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