The answer to this question is: Not much really.
In email parlance, the “pretty name” is kind of a plain text hitchhiker that can (but is not required to) accompany an email address for display purposes. It allows email clients to display meaningful text for address fields (From, To, Cc, Bcc) instead of just an address.
So, instead of seeing something like this:
somecrypticaddress@somedomain.com
Your email client will show you something like this:
Name of Somebody I Know
A correctly formatted email address with a pretty name will look like this:
“A Pretty Name”<address@optionalsubdomain.domain.tld>
However, you will rarely, if ever, see an address displayed this way. Most email clients will just display the pretty name if one is available (BTW, this explains why you see addresses for some of the people in your address book and names for others.)
If the pretty name is set on the sender’s end, your email client will see something like the example above but some email clients, in an effort to be extra friendly, will also match addresses to address book entries and substitute the name field from the address book. Therefore, there is always a chance that you see a “pretty name” even if the sender didn’t supply one.
Setting your own “pretty name” is done on a per client basis. This means that if you’re using Outlook at work, Thunderbird at home and some kind of web-mail client on the road you’ll have to set the name you want displayed to recipients in all three places.
The field to enter this info usually right before the one for the actual address in the account configuration and will likely be called “Display Name”, “Your Name” or even just “Name”. You can have hours of fun with your email clueless friends by setting your pretty name to “IRS Audit Division” and sending them official looking email.
And speaking of tricking people with pretty names, the pretty name can be just about anything and is not required to bear any relationship whatsoever to the address it accompanies. Accordingly, spammers like to use the “pretty name” option in order to fool people into opening their messages.
For example you might see a pretty name like this:
Name of Bank Security Dept.
With an actual address like this:
anyname@gmail.com
If all you see is the pretty name, which is common to many email software clients, then you might be taken in by this and end up sending your account information to some random gmail, yahoo or msn address. And, in case you weren’t absolutely sure, your bank will not be sending sensitive correspondence from some huge supplier of free email addresses like gmail.com.
There are a lot of email clients available so we can’t go into the details of how to get to the real address from the pretty name on all of them. However, in all of the ones we’ve tried while writing this it was as simple as either hovering the mouse over the pretty name or clicking on it. Taking a few minutes to find out how this works in your email client or clients can save you tons of grief later on.
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I am a collection attorney. I received an email from Mr. Xing Ping, Chairman and CEO of Dumei Cable Co., LTD., Linglong Industrial Conservancy District, Linan Zhejiang China, requesting me to”exert pressure” on customers, and act as the local agent of Dumei. I emailed an attorney’s fee contract to Mr. Xing Ping, it was signed and returned by email. I was given some names of customers to see if I had a conflict. Shortly thereafter, Mr Xing Ping advised me that a customer was paying for goods purchased from Dumei and the cashiers check was being sent to me. At that point I became suspicious. This was too easy. What about federal trade restrictions, income tax reporting or withholding, registration as a foreign corporation, and other issues about which, as a simple collection attorney, I didn’t have any expertise? I received UPS delivery envelope from York, Ontario, Canada containing a $462,400. “Official Check” drawn on HSBC Bank USA and a copy of an invoice indicating electrical cable parts were purchased by Accurate Connections, Inc. It looks good! I asked my Bank to verify the check before putting it into my trust account. I didn’t need a $462,400 charge back. I googled Accurate Connections, Inc. and came up with a Texas corporation. I contacted the registered agent, an attorney at law, and he put me in touch with an officer who disclaimed knowledge of any such transaction. The Bank confirmed the “official check” was Bogus! Mr. Xing Ping emailed me and requested me to immediately issue a check on my trust account for $220,000 and mail it out of the country to a Korean Company for payment of Dumei’s bill, and also pay my lawfirm $10,000 for attorney’s fees. By email, I threatened to prosecute Mr. Xing Ping to the full extent of the law, although to date I have done nothing. I have represented banks and am somewhat familiar with the time it takes for checks to clear the bank and the nature of uncollected funds and even if I had deposited the Official Check to my account I would not have issued any immediate payment until I knew the funds were good. I can’t imagine any attorney falling for this deal, because we are all smarter than that.