Add additional email aliases to a user

Add additional email aliases to a user

A primary email address in Microsoft 365 is usually the email address a user was assigned when their account was created. When the user sends email to someone else, their primary email address is what typically appears in the From field in email apps. They can also have more than one email address associated with their Microsoft 365 for business account. These additional addresses are called aliases. You can create up to 400 aliases for a user. No additional fees or licenses are required. This article is for Microsoft 365 administrators who have business subscriptions. It's not for home users.

For example, Jenna at your organization has the email address jenna@contosoco.com, but she also wants to receive email at jen@contosoco.com because some people refer to her by that name. You can create aliases for her so that email sent to both email addresses go to Jenna's inbox.

No additional fees or licenses are required. 

TIP: If you want multiple people to manage email sent to a single email address like info@contoso.com or sales@contoso.com, create a shared mailbox.  To learn more, see Create shared mailboxes in Office 365.

Add email aliases to a user

You must have admin permissions in Office 365 to do this.

  1. In the admin center, go to the Users > Active users page.
  2. On the Active Users page, select the user you want to manage.
  3. Under Aliases and select Manage username and email. You won't see this option if the person doesn't have a license assigned to them.
  4. On the Manage username and email page, add the new alias in the Username field, select a domain and choose Add.
  5. When you're done, choose Save changes. It usually takes about 24 hours for the new aliases to update.
    The user will now have a primary address and an alias. For example, all mail sent to jenna@contoso.com, and her alias, jen@contoso.com, will go to Jenna's inbox. When the user replies, the From address will depend on her Outlook client. Outlook on the web will use the alias at which the email was received. Outlook desktop will use her primary email alias.

    • Related Articles

    • How to add a user as a Site Collection Admin using PS

      In this article we want to share with you how to add a second Site Collection Admin using Powershell. If this is a task you are trying to complete, keep reading, you might achieve it by the end of this reading. Step-by-step 1. First you need to ...

    • Customize an "allow list" to receive email from a domain or user

      Use the Microsoft Defender portal to create allow entries for domains and email addresses in the Tenant Allow/Block List In the Microsoft Defender portal at https://security.microsoft.com, go to Email & collaboration > Policies & rules > Threat ...

    • Add an external contact to your Office 365 tenant.

      Adding an external user as a "Contact" allows you to perform a multitude of tasks that typically require the user to be created in your organization, such as forwarding email to it, or add the user to a distribution list. To add an external user as a ...

    • Create and add members to a distribution list.

      As the admin of an Office 365 organization, you may need to add one of your users or contacts to a distribution list. For example, you can add employees or external partners or vendors to an email distribution list. Create a distribution list. Sign ...

    • Use the Exchange Admin Center to set up email forwarding

      In the EAC, go to Recipients > Mailboxes. In the list of user mailboxes, click the mailbox that you want to configure mail forwarding for. A display pane is shown for the selected user mailbox. Under Mailbox > Email forwarding, click the Manage email ...