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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_SMTP#SMTPUTF8

The SMTPUTF8 extension allows UTF-8 encoding in mailbox names and header fields. This provides the capability for sending email to internationalized addresses such as Pelé@example.com, δοκιμή@παράδειγμα.δοκιμή, and 测试@测试.测试.

Does Exchange server support mailbox names such as these, and if so through what methods? I'm replacing some MAPI functionality with a more open SMTP module (so that it's not reliant on Exchange/Outlook) but the project is based in Sweden and many email addresses contain such characters.

pat o.
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Mr. Boy
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1 Answers1

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Official documentation from Microsoft on this is hard to find.

Bottom line: Although not currently supported in Exchange, it appears Microsoft is beginning to support EAI in Office which means they may be planning to support EAI in the future for other products.

This is based on the following paragraph from a Microsoft article about new features in Outlook 2016. In What's new in Outlook 2016 for Windows Microsoft states:

EAI (Email Address Internationalization)

EAI is a Outlook 2016 feature that enables you to send mail to, or receive mail from any email addresses regardless of the language of the email address. International addresses work just like English email addresses, so you reply, send, and compose emails the same way.

If you own international email addresses, you can configure them and use all the features of Outlook 2016. Office 365 doesn’t support creation of international address at the time of the release of Outlook 2016. However, if you're an Office 365 user, you can send mail to and receive email from any international address. We recommend that you use Unicode Outlook data files (pst and ost files) when using EAI.

Particularly of note in the text above is "Office 365 doesn't support creation of international address at the time of the release of Outlook 2016."

One could reasonably take that statement as an implication that they will be supporting this feature in the future of Office 365.

Furthermore, you can look at the feature set for Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Online as a preview for features in Microsoft Exchange Server. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect EAI support in Microsoft Exchange in the future.

Also worth noting is that Google is beginning to support EAI as well per A first step toward more global email from August 5, 2014

Starting now, Gmail (and shortly, Calendar) will recognize addresses that contain accented or non-Latin characters. This means Gmail users can send emails to, and receive emails from, people who have these characters in their email addresses. Of course, this is just a first step and there’s still a ways to go. In the future, we want to make it possible for you to use them to create Gmail accounts.

pat o.
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    I see no indications of EAI in "~Exchange~" Office 365 roadmap (not that MS is particularly informative with their roadmap). Wink twice if there is definitely **not** any NDA information around this. :) – blaughw Feb 03 '16 at 18:18
  • Good point, but I think the assumption is still a reasonable one. I edited my answer to clarify. – pat o. Feb 03 '16 at 19:19
  • Now I see your job title... -- hey, I'm just going by what seems to be publicly available. :) – pat o. Feb 03 '16 at 19:57
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    Yeah, my job is to keep a close eye on the roadmap, and turn things off before they hit us in undesirable ways. :) Yammer has been most valuable in my experience. – blaughw Feb 03 '16 at 20:05
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    "Therefore, it is reasonable to expect EAI support in Microsoft Exchange in the future". Well, Exchange 2019 still does not support it... – Clément Moulin - SimpleRezo Nov 18 '19 at 10:59