January 19th, 2015

Why does Outlook use a semicolon to separate multiple recipients by default?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Microsoft Outlook by default uses a semicolon to separate multiple recipients. You can change this to a comma, but why is the semicolon the default?

Microsoft Outlook was originally positioned as a business product, and many businesses complained that the use of a comma as a separator created havoc because they have a policy of setting names in the address book as “Last, First”.

In 2000, the Outlook folks tried to change the default, but the outcry from corporations made them go back to having the semicolon be the default separator.

Besides, there are a lot of people who have commas in their names, such as Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Old New Thing
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Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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