OUTLOOK FIX - Send emails from root domain (e.g. info@domain.com) + show header
under review
M
Mirvjen Dollani
NOTE: THIS BUG IS MARKET PREVIOUSLY AS RESOLVED! THIS IS FALSE. THIS IS ON GHL AND GHL NEEDS TO FIX THIS!
This is what it says when adding a subdomain and connecting with LC. However, currently, everyone who does this if failing MS Office users. I spent hours reading and "on behalf of" topic and could not find a solution. 99% of our clients use outlook, hence we need to fix how this looks on Outlook.
1- Fix "on behalf of" for the root domain email
2- Show header text (Contact <contact@go.domain.com> instead of contact@go.domain.com) at the top of the email - should be fixed for both subdomain emails and the root one
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R
Richard Hickman
Adding technical detail, since the root cause is specific and the fix is well scoped.
Root cause: on campaign sends from an authenticated sending subdomain, LeadConnector injects an RFC 5322 “Sender:” header that does not match “From:”. For a customer with a root-domain From sending from an aligned subdomain:
From: Your Name <you@rootdomain.com>
When Sender differs from From, RFC 5322 clients display “Your Name on behalf of you=rootdomain.com@mail.rootdomain.com.” Outlook shows this; Gmail hides it, which is why the same message looks fine in Gmail and broken in Outlook.
This is not an auth problem. Affected messages pass fully: dkim=pass (d=mail.rootdomain.com), spf=pass, dmarc=pass (header.from=rootdomain.com, aligned via the subdomain under relaxed alignment). Bounces are already handled by the Return-Path on the subdomain. The visible Sender header is optional and is the sole cause of the “on behalf of.”
The fix (backend): when the authenticated sending domain is organizationally aligned with the From domain (same root, or a subdomain of it), do not add a visible “Sender:” header. Keep the Return-Path on the subdomain so bounces route and SPF/DKIM alignment hold (DMARC still passes). This removes the “on behalf of” with no loss of authentication or reputation isolation. If a Sender header must remain, set it equal to From, not to the envelope address.
This is how major ESPs already behave (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, SendGrid, HubSpot): authenticated domain via DKIM, the customer’s From, no visible Sender header, no “on behalf of.”
Impact: this hits every customer following HighLevel’s own recommended best practice of a dedicated sending subdomain. It makes fully authenticated senders look spoofed to Outlook recipients, hurting trust and engagement. One optional header is undermining the recommended setup, and removing it is a small, contained change.
Happy to provide raw headers to help reproduce.
S
Sales & Marketing
Merged in a post:
Emails showing on behalf of instead of showing my true domain
C
Chris Damron
Using automation, my emails are showing chris=shocialyfe.fun on behalf of my actual email domain. See attached screenshot. On gmail the from shows correctly, but in Outlook it shows a very long from with "on behalf of _____". It's my belief that this is affecting my open rate. I tested with 2 customers and they never received my emails, yet Highlevel stated the emails were delivered.
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Sales & Marketing
Merged in a post:
Email From says on behalf of "xxxxx" instead of short email i.e team@gentlebirth.com
J
Jose Velez
When I am using go high level and I try to send an email outlook says on the from "team=gentlebirth.com@emailparents.gentlebirth.com on behalf of Sara" instead of team@gentlebirth.com like it does for google. Hence, it is likely people will find it "suspicious".
It would be interesting to consider the approach that sendgrid uses which is to "authenticate single senders" so that this does not happen. Any other way to solve the problem is also welcomed.
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Henry Neale
Can you fix this for Outlook? Don't care if the "on behalf of" is still showing up, I need the highlighted part to be my real email address. The entire business world uses Outlook, please fix it.
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M
Matthias Loeffel
Is there any news on this issue? Will allow GHL to verify our root domains for dedicated email sending domains? I guess this would probably solve the issue.
S
Sarah Koenig
I am having the same issue with sending emails to Outlook. Has there been any solution developed?
K
Katharina Kislewski
Yes, I have the same problem with Outlook. I've been searching for a solution for hours now, but there doesn't seem to be one at the moment.
S
Shane Veldhuizen
This needs to be resolved!
A
Abhishek Shekhar APM
updated the status to
under review
M
Matthias Loeffel
This is a very serious issue, and for over a year now nothing has been done to solve this. I also find it very annoying and it actually hurts trust.
How come every other major email marketing software is not having this issue? My guess also is, that this would not be a huge thing to implement. Please fix this asap: "on behalf of..." must go away completely!
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