# Support additional contact addresses?

**URL:** <https://forum.delta.chat/t/support-additional-contact-addresses/50>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [August 28, 2018, 2:14pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/support-additional-contact-addresses/50 "2018-08-28T14:14:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![r10s](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/r10s/32/1513_2.png) [@r10s](https://forum.delta.chat/u/r10s)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 2:14pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/support-additional-contact-addresses/50/1 "2018-08-28T14:14:21Z")

</div>

[here and there](https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core/issues/235), the idea of supporting multiple e-mail addresses per contact come up.

i also thought about this some time ago, my thoughts were:

1. showing multiple email-addresses of a single contact in different chats _may_ be wanted eg. to divide work/private
2. showing multiple email-addresses of a single contact in different chats may _not_ be wanted by aliases, old addresses etc.

however, if unused aliases, old addresses etc. of 2. appear as a separate chat, they will appear only at the end of a long list and “fade out” as soon as the new address is used. this is transparent for the user and no issue imho.

allowing multiple email-addresses per contact would raise a lot of problems to solve:

- the recipient has to decide to which address he wants to send - a decision that is not always simple
- we would need ui to show from where a given messages was sent
- we probably would need an option to allow sending to several addresses at the same time
- probably, this would also make the key and group management more complicated
- according to experience, probably even more 🙂
- all this may need additional ui that has to be explained to the user and understood by the user.

compared with that, the current situation seems to be better:

- it is very clear to the user where a message is sent to and received from
- the user needs no additional knowledge
- simple, maintainable code and logic
- _KISS - Keep it simple stupid_ 🙂

the disadvantage may be some cluttered threads - which, however, will also be there if we would offer options to join chats, and need to be fixed by the user

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![testbird](https://forum.delta.chat/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@testbird](https://forum.delta.chat/u/testbird)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/support-additional-contact-addresses/50/2 "2018-08-28T14:51:41Z")

</div>

Thanks to your explanations, I think just a “Function to re-assign messages” (allowing to move a selection of messages like spam/unapproved email/chat to other places) should suffice.

See 3rd general feature at [https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core/wiki/Use-Cases#general-features](https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core/wiki/Use-Cases#general-features)

That would allow to keep a continuous chat history when a contact switches addresses.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![r10s](https://forum.delta.chat/user_avatar/forum.delta.chat/r10s/32/1513_2.png) [@r10s](https://forum.delta.chat/u/r10s)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2026, 2:16pm UTC](https://forum.delta.chat/t/support-additional-contact-addresses/50/3 "2026-02-12T14:16:46Z")

</div>


