How to Enable and Use Send on Behalf Permissions in Outlook: Email Delegation & You

Your bandwidth is finite, and that makes email delegation important. However, maintaining a consistent, professional brand voice can be challenging with Outlook’s somewhat opaque demands for sending emails on behalf of someone.

In practice, a well-configured delegation setup lets representatives and sales coordinators nurture leads on an executive’s behalf without sacrificing authenticity or accountability. Outlooks offers send-on-behalf functionality since this is a critical and simple function for business correspondence.

In this article, we’ll quickly cover:

• The difference between “send as” and “send on behalf” for Outlook emails
• How to enable send on behalf permissions for your Outlook account
• Steps for using those permissions to send emails on someone else’s behalf
• Common issues users encounter when sending emails on behalf of another

To start, let’s clarify the difference between Send As versus Send on Behalf.

Send As vs Send on Behalf: Choosing the Right Permission

Before diving into how to send emails on behalf of someone in Outlook, it’s worth understanding exactly what permission you’re enabling. Choosing the wrong type can undermine trust with prospects and partners.

Send on Behalf keeps both identities visible. The “From” line explicitly shows the delegate alongside the principal, adding an additional transparency layer.

Send As, by contrast, completely hides the delegate’s identity. In B2B outreach, this distinction can help avoid inconsistencies and minor inbox friction. Prospects making high-consideration purchase decisions tend to notice inconsistencies, so it can be helpful to keep everything under one sender identity.

How to Enable ‘Send on Behalf’ Permissions (Owner & Admin)

There are two distinct paths to enable send-on-behalf permissions, depending on whether you’re the mailbox owner or an IT administrator.

Outlook Desktop: Delegating Access Setup as a Mailbox Owner

For individual users, the process is straightforward:

1. Open Outlook and go to File > Info > Account Settings > Delegate Access.
2. Click Add and search for the delegate’s name.
3. Select the delegate and click Add again.
4. In the permissions dialog, set folder-specific access. Set Calendar and Inbox to None if you only need send-only access, not full folder visibility.
5. Check “Delegate receives copies of meeting-related messages” only if needed.
6. Click OK to save.

Limiting folder permissions to None is a critical detail many setups overlook. It keeps delegation clean and prevents delegates from browsing folders they don’t need.

Microsoft 365 Admin Center: Admin-Level Configuration

For IT teams managing permissions across multiple users, you’ll need to go through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and use their centralized interface instead. Navigate to Users > Active Users, select the principal’s mailbox, and configure delegation under Mail Settings.

PowerShell: Advanced Setup & Bulk Management

For larger organizations, PowerShell offers a faster, more scalable approach to getting all this set up. According to Microsoft, enabling access requires configuring the GrantSendOnBehalfTo parameter via Exchange:

Set-Mailbox -Identity ‘principal@example.com’ -GrantSendOnBehalfTo ‘delegate@example.com’

Proper delegation configuration is the “hard” part, and makes the actual sending workflow seamless. Speaking of which, let’s walk through exactly what the delegate experiences when composing and sending messages.

How to Send Outlook Emails on Behalf of Someone Else

With permissions in place, it’s time to actually compose and send the message. The steps differ slightly between Outlook Desktop and Outlook on the Web; knowing both keeps you efficient regardless of where you’re working.

Outlook Desktop

1. Open a new email and navigate to the Options tab in the ribbon.
2. Click From to enable the From field in the message header.
3. Select Other Email Address from the dropdown, then search the Global Address List (GAL) for the principal’s name.

Outlook on the Web (OWA)

1. Open a new message and click More Options (the three-dot menu).
2. Select Show From to reveal the From field.
3. Click the From field and choose the principal’s address directly from the Global Address List.
4. Compose and send as usual.

If all goes well, the recipient should see the sender field populated as “[Delegate Name] on behalf of [Principal Name].”

One critical caveat: the principal’s mailbox must be visible in the Global Access List GAL. If it’s hidden, delegates will hit errors regardless of which platform they’re using. Confirming GAL visibility before granting permissions saves significant back-and-forth later.

Even with these steps followed correctly, a few common snags can still trip up delegates, as we’ll tackle next.

Troubleshooting Common Email Delegation Issues

Even after correctly configuring your Outlook send-on-behalf permissions, a few friction points can trip up even experienced users. Here’s how to resolve the most common ones fast:

• Propagation delays cause permissions to appear inactive. Permissions can take up to 24 hours to fully propagate in Exchange Online; if it’s not working immediately, wait and retry before escalating to IT.
• Sent emails don’t appear in the principal’s Sent Items. By default, sent messages are saved to the delegate’s folder; on Exchange 2016 and later, an admin can configure copies to save in the principal’s Sent Items instead.
• The ‘From’ button is missing when composing. Open a new message, navigate to Options, and select Show From. This field is hidden by default in Outlook Desktop.
• A ‘You do not have permission’ error appears on send. This typically means permissions weren’t saved correctly or the wrong account is selected; ask the mailbox owner to re-grant access and confirm the delegate is choosing the correct From address.

A Better Way to Outlook

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And it’s all backed by our 99.999% uptime SLAs and J.D. Power-certified 24/7 support. These pesky Outlook problems can be a thing of the past when you work with a provider that gives you white-glove service from the very beginning. Our experts get you onboarded and ready to go with no downtime or data loss. The result is a Worry-Free Experience™ you can only get from Intermedia.

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The Intermedia Team

Intermedia helps businesses of all sizes connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. And, as a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for our channel partners to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success.