(Outlook)(not admin) Forward emails sent to nonexistent address within same domain?

skybox44 · 18 May 2025, 03:03 AM

Thanks for your help with my question about personal emails going to spam. My other question is about receiving (or trying to receive) emails.

My student email address (Outlook) contains a misspelling of my name (one missing letter). So it's very easy for people to send their emails to an address that doesn't exist, thinking they're sending it to me. What would be great if I could somehow have those emails forwarded to the correct address, or at least be notified when people try to send an email to the nonexistent address.

I've tested things a bit. When I try sending an email to the "wrong" (correct spelling of my name, but nonexistent) address, I usually get an email from Microsoft indicating the mistake. But not always. And even when I do, it sometimes takes a few minutes, or it goes to some easily overlooked folder besides the main inbox. I worry that busy people might send an email to the wrong address and move on, never noticing the following error email.

I know one obvious solution is to ask my school's IT department to make a new address with the correct spelling, and have all emails sent to the previous incorrectly-spelled address forwarded to the new one. But 1. I don't know if I'll be allowed to keep two addresses, and 2. I don't trust Outlook to successfully forward everything to the new address.

I'd rather use a "catch-all" solution, where emails sent to the correctly spelled (but nonexistent) address are automatically forwarded to the existing (but incorrectly spelled) address. Or maybe I can somehow get a notification that someone has tried to send an email to the nonexistent address? Are either of these (or something else I haven't thought of) possible?

Before taking this to my school's IT department, I want to see if there's anything I can do myself. Like I said, it's a student email address, so my options are probably limited. But I'm wondering if I have access to any settings (I mainly use the web version of Outlook, but I also have the PC app), or if there's any 3rd party solutions I can implement on my own that could accomplish something like what I have in mind.

If I do end up having to ask my school's IT department for help, what should I tell them to try?

**CyberSmurf** · 18 May 2025, 05:05 AM

See if they can set up an alias for your account using the correct spelling. You will probably have to log in using the incorrect spelling, but you should be able to send receive with your preferred alias.

My previous account at a university was limited to 8 characters. When they created my account they used my last name, but my last name was too long so they chopped it off before the end. I never used the actual account name with email, I always used an alias.

skybox44 · 18 May 2025, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSmurf

See if they can set up an alias for your account using the correct spelling. You will probably have to log in using the incorrect spelling, but you should be able to send receive with your preferred alias.

My previous account at a university was limited to 8 characters. When they created my account they used my last name, but my last name was too long so they chopped it off before the end. I never used the actual account name with email, I always used an alias.

That's a good idea. I want to try to see if I can do that myself over the weekend. If I did have access to that option, where would I find the setting to set up an alias? When I try to follow the instructions here, and enter in my school email address and password on the "Add an alias" page, it says I don't have a Microsoft account. Is that because I'm not the admin? Can I add the correctly spelled but nonexisiting address as an alias to my personal Outlook address? Can a nonexisting address be an alias for two different Outlook accounts (my school and my personal)?

**CyberSmurf** · 18 May 2025, 07:36 AM

You don't have the ability to create an alias for an account in Outlook.

Some email providers allow you to create an alias yourself, e.g. gmx.com, however I'm sure that isn't something that your school would allow.
You would have to contact your IT department.

janusz · 19 May 2025, 04:37 AM

Particularly if the said IT department created the misspelled address in the first place.

hadaso · 19 May 2025, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

Particularly if the said IT department created the misspelled address in the first place.

They might have had a reason to use a variant on the name: it may have been already used in the past by anther student or employee.

skybox44 · 20 May 2025, 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSmurf

You don't have the ability to create an alias for an account in Outlook.

Some email providers allow you to create an alias yourself, e.g. gmx.com, however I'm sure that isn't something that your school would allow.
You would have to contact your IT department.

Thanks for your help. I asked my school IT, and they said that while they can technically do it, they don't want to, because those alternate addresses may want to be used by another student (But I don't see why they can't have them as aliases temporarily, and remove them later if they need to).

Do I have any other options? It'd be nice if I could at least be notified if somebody tries to email one of the misspellings I was planning to add as aliases. Is there any way I can set it up so I get notified? Is the IT admin at least able to see when people attempt to send an email to one of those nonexisting addresses on their domain?

I tried setting up the aliases to have their emails forwarded to my personal Outlook, but it wouldn't let me add any addresses for a school or work domain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume trying to do some similar solution using a different email provider (Gmail, for instance) would run into the same problem: I don't own the domain, and the email addresses (being nonexistent) would be impossible for me to verify... Unless, of course, the domain admin still receives the emails sent to nonexisting addresses, and could forward me the verification links.

I'm not clear on the difference between Outlook aliases and a catch-all solution. What sort of catch-all solution could I ask the IT department to try? If it's just an issue of me getting a lot of spam, I'm fine with that. I would rather get more emails than I need than miss (or not be notified of) important emails that are sent to the wrong address.

**CyberSmurf** · 20 May 2025, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skybox44

[..]My student email address [..] contains a misspelling of my name (one missing letter).[..]

Is it like my account where they couldn't fit my whole last name?
If this is the case, have you checked if you already have an alias?

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSmurf

[..]When they created my account they used my last name, but my last name was too long so they chopped it off before the end. I never used the actual account name with email, I always used an alias.

When they created my email account they created the alias firstname_lastname@ . The incomplete lastname@ was only an issue if I didn't change my from address in my outgoing messages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

Particularly if the said IT department created the misspelled address in the first place.

If they misspelled your first or last name, they should definitely create a new alias.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hadaso

They might have had a reason to use a variant on the name: it may have been already used in the past by anther student or employee.

One of my coworkers ended up with a firstname_lastname_2@ alias. (Not my firstname_lastname )

Quote:

Originally Posted by skybox44

[..] I asked my school IT, and they said that while they can technically do it, they don't want to, because those alternate addresses may want to be used by another student (But I don't see why they can't have them as aliases temporarily, and remove them later if they need to).[..]

Don't ask for a bunch of aliases, just one with some form of the correct spelling.

**CyberSmurf** · 20 May 2025, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skybox44

[..]I'm not clear on the difference between Outlook aliases and a catch-all solution. What sort of catch-all solution could I ask the IT department to try? If it's just an issue of me getting a lot of spam, I'm fine with that. I would rather get more emails than I need than miss (or not be notified of) important emails that are sent to the wrong address.

It can be confusing, if like SFU they replaced their traditional webmail with Outlook_on_line.

To be clear, you will never get a catch-all solution unless you own the domain and your email provider supports catch-all. Catch-all would be anything@yourdomain .

skybox44 · 20 May 2025, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSmurf

Don't ask for a bunch of aliases, just one with some form of the correct spelling.

Yeah, I probably should have asked for just one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSmurf

It can be confusing, if like SFU they replaced their traditional webmail with Outlook_on_line.

To be clear, you will never get a catch-all solution unless you own the domain and your email provider supports catch-all. Catch-all would be anything@yourdomain .

Ok, I see. So the admin would be able to see emails sent to incorrect/nonexisiting addresses on their domain, if they have a catch-all solution in place. Would they be able to see them even if they don't use a catch-all? Basically I'm hoping they can let me know if I have emails sent to the wrong address.

**CyberSmurf** · 21 May 2025, 03:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skybox44

[...]
Ok, I see. So the admin would be able to see emails sent to incorrect/nonexisiting addresses on their domain, if they have a catch-all solution in place. Would they be able to see them even if they don't use a catch-all? Basically I'm hoping they can let me know if I have emails sent to the wrong address.

I don't know what the IT department would see, or if they log or save email sent to non-existent addresses. They may or may not alert the sender that the message did not go through.
I'm sure that there are safeguards in place to prevent the IT department from idle snooping into users email. Probably the only thing that they would pay attention to would be if someone was spamming their users.

I'm certain that you will not have any luck trying to get a list of email sent to a non-existent address.

hadaso · 21 May 2025, 05:13 AM

They probably haven't set a catchall address for the domain that all students use for their email. It doesn't make sense: nobody is going to read all the messages that would be sent to addresses that are not used by any human being. There would be millions of these and practically all of them spam, and it would cause loss of maul sent to misspelled addresses. So the likely scenario is that messages sent to any address not associated to a user's mailbox would be refused, and then the sender's software (if it is setup correctly) would notify the sender that the message was not received due to the recipient address being nonexistent. The admin would not be able to read the messages, but the server log would probably indicate that messages sent were not received (and perhaps also the time and sender address of each such message).
So that's what I guess will happen with mail sent to skybox44's correct name, that was not associated with a mailbox. If in the future the school will give this address to some user, then the messages sent to the address would go to that user's mailbox.

skybox44 · 22 May 2025, 06:04 AM

Yeah, it doesn't seem I'll be able to get much assistance from my school's IT, even to set up a single alias. So I guess there's really nothing I can do, in terms of getting emails or notifications of emails sent to the wrong place (except hope people spell my address right, and that they see the error emails if they don't)? Thanks for your help guys.

18 May 2025, 03:03 AM	#1
skybox44 Junior Member Join Date: May 2025 Posts: 7	(Outlook)(not admin) Forward emails sent to nonexistent address within same domain? Thanks for your help with my question about personal emails going to spam. My other question is about receiving (or trying to receive) emails. My student email address (Outlook) contains a misspelling of my name (one missing letter). So it's very easy for people to send their emails to an address that doesn't exist, thinking they're sending it to me. What would be great if I could somehow have those emails forwarded to the correct address, or at least be notified when people try to send an email to the nonexistent address. I've tested things a bit. When I try sending an email to the "wrong" (correct spelling of my name, but nonexistent) address, I usually get an email from Microsoft indicating the mistake. But not always. And even when I do, it sometimes takes a few minutes, or it goes to some easily overlooked folder besides the main inbox. I worry that busy people might send an email to the wrong address and move on, never noticing the following error email. I know one obvious solution is to ask my school's IT department to make a new address with the correct spelling, and have all emails sent to the previous incorrectly-spelled address forwarded to the new one. But 1. I don't know if I'll be allowed to keep two addresses, and 2. I don't trust Outlook to successfully forward everything to the new address. I'd rather use a "catch-all" solution, where emails sent to the correctly spelled (but nonexistent) address are automatically forwarded to the existing (but incorrectly spelled) address. Or maybe I can somehow get a notification that someone has tried to send an email to the nonexistent address? Are either of these (or something else I haven't thought of) possible? Before taking this to my school's IT department, I want to see if there's anything I can do myself. Like I said, it's a student email address, so my options are probably limited. But I'm wondering if I have access to any settings (I mainly use the web version of Outlook, but I also have the PC app), or if there's any 3rd party solutions I can implement on my own that could accomplish something like what I have in mind. If I do end up having to ask my school's IT department for help, what should I tell them to try?

18 May 2025, 05:05 AM	#2
CyberSmurf Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: British Columbia Posts: 4,073	See if they can set up an alias for your account using the correct spelling. You will probably have to log in using the incorrect spelling, but you should be able to send receive with your preferred alias. My previous account at a university was limited to 8 characters. When they created my account they used my last name, but my last name was too long so they chopped it off before the end. I never used the actual account name with email, I always used an alias.

18 May 2025, 07:36 AM	#4
CyberSmurf Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: British Columbia Posts: 4,073	You don't have the ability to create an alias for an account in Outlook. Some email providers allow you to create an alias yourself, e.g. gmx.com, however I'm sure that isn't something that your school would allow. You would have to contact your IT department.

19 May 2025, 04:37 AM	#5
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,991	Particularly if the said IT department created the misspelled address in the first place.

21 May 2025, 05:13 AM	#12
hadaso Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 5,033	They probably haven't set a catchall address for the domain that all students use for their email. It doesn't make sense: nobody is going to read all the messages that would be sent to addresses that are not used by any human being. There would be millions of these and practically all of them spam, and it would cause loss of maul sent to misspelled addresses. So the likely scenario is that messages sent to any address not associated to a user's mailbox would be refused, and then the sender's software (if it is setup correctly) would notify the sender that the message was not received due to the recipient address being nonexistent. The admin would not be able to read the messages, but the server log would probably indicate that messages sent were not received (and perhaps also the time and sender address of each such message). So that's what I guess will happen with mail sent to skybox44's correct name, that was not associated with a mailbox. If in the future the school will give this address to some user, then the messages sent to the address would go to that user's mailbox.

22 May 2025, 06:04 AM	#13
skybox44 Junior Member Join Date: May 2025 Posts: 7	Yeah, it doesn't seem I'll be able to get much assistance from my school's IT, even to set up a single alias. So I guess there's really nothing I can do, in terms of getting emails or notifications of emails sent to the wrong place (except hope people spell my address right, and that they see the error emails if they don't)? Thanks for your help guys.