Don’t use the “@” sign in the From: display name

Address-like formats like sandy [at] figureone [dot] com usually make me cringe because they’re old-fashioned attempts at security.

(The concept was that address-harvesting bots won’t know these are email addresses. Quite ridiculous, as you’ve just substituted one recognizable format for another!)

But there is one place where spelling out “at” instead of the “@” sign makes sense: the display name part of a From: header.

You won’t know it if you don’t test your emails thoroughly, but this From: header is deemed suspicious by iOS Mail:

From: "Sandy @ FigureOne" <sandy@figureone.com>

The app sees the display name “Sandy @ FigureOne” as a possible phishing attempt because it looks like an email address but doesn’t match the real address (“sandy@figureone.com”).

So it’ll display the real address instead, spoiling your attempt at being friendly:

Instead, avoid the literal “@” sign:

From: "Sandy at FigureOne" <sandy@figureone.com>

Now, it’s no longer suspicious and the display name is honored:

Proceed accordingly! 😊