When managing users in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online, you may encounter the term Alternate Address. Understanding how alternate addresses work is important for identity management, email delivery, user access, and collaboration across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
What is an Alternate Address?
An Alternate Address is any email address associated with a Microsoft 365 account that is not the user's primary email address.
In other words, a user can have one primary email address and multiple alternate addresses, commonly referred to as email aliases.
Example:
Primary email address:
kevin@contoso.com
Alternate addresses:
k.smith@contoso.com
kevin.smith@contoso.com
support@contoso.com
Messages sent to any of these alternate addresses are delivered to the same mailbox.
How Alternate Addresses Work
Microsoft 365 allows administrators to assign multiple email aliases to a single user account. These addresses can be used for:
Receiving email through multiple addresses
Supporting organizational naming conventions
Simplifying migrations from legacy email systems
Maintaining compatibility after domain changes
Supporting mergers and acquisitions
For example, a user may receive email sent to both:
john.doe@contoso.com
jdoe@contoso.com
Even though only one address is configured as the primary SMTP address.
The primary address serves as the user's main identity, while alternate addresses provide additional methods for communication.
SharePoint Online and Alternate Addresses
In SharePoint Online, alternate addresses play an important role behind the scenes.
Benefits include:
- Improved User Recognition
- Users may appear in SharePoint with their primary identity even when emails originate from an alternate address.
- Seamless Collaboration
- Documents shared with an alternate address still resolve to the correct Microsoft 365 user account.
- Simplified Tenant Migrations
- Organizations migrating domains can maintain legacy email addresses as alternate addresses, reducing user disruption.
Guest and Hybrid Scenarios
Alternate addresses can help organizations maintain consistent user identity mapping across multiple domains and environments.
Before:
jane@oldcompany.com
After migration:
jane@newcompany.com
Instead of removing the old address, administrators can add it as an alternate address:
Primary: jane@newcompany.com
Alias: jane@oldcompany.com
This ensures continued email delivery while users adopt the new branding.
Department Reorganization
A user moving from one department to another might require a new email address while maintaining access to messages sent to their previous address.
Corporate Rebranding
Organizations frequently retain older email domains as alternate addresses during branding transitions to avoid lost communications.
Managing Alternate Addresses
Microsoft 365 administrators can manage alternate addresses through:
- Microsoft 365 Admin Center
- Exchange Admin Center
- Microsoft Graph
- Exchange Online PowerShell
Example PowerShell command to view SMTP addresses:
Get-Mailbox -Identity "Kevin" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty EmailAddresses
Example output:
SMTP:kevin@contoso.com
smtp:k.smith@contoso.com
smtp:kevin.smith@contoso.com
Notice that:
Uppercase SMTP indicates the primary address.
Lowercase smtp entries represent alternate addresses (aliases).
Best Practices
To effectively manage alternate addresses:
- Use descriptive and consistent naming conventions.
- Retain previous addresses during migrations.
- Document alias assignments for administrative tracking.
- Regularly review unused aliases.
- Ensure alternate addresses align with organizational security policies.
Conclusion
An Alternate Address in Microsoft 365 is any email address associated with a user account that is not the primary email address. These additional addresses, often called aliases, allow organizations to support multiple domains, simplify migrations, maintain backward compatibility, and improve communication flexibility. Understanding alternate addresses can help SharePoint and Microsoft 365 administrators create a smoother user experience while maintaining efficient identity and email management across the organization.
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