You rename a long address to Billy. From then on your assistant writes to Billy, your contacts page shows Billy, and naming Billy in the shorthand opens a draft. Billy never sees that word — not on his list, not in his assistant, and not in the package that arrives — unless you say he can.
That last part is enforced, not hoped for.
What a nickname is
It is your word for an accepted contact, stored on your side of the pair. They can have a different word for you. Neither of you writes the other's.
A nickname is not a public handle. There is no directory to claim a name in, and no squatters. Identity on RelayLink is still email plus consent.
A few rules keep addressing honest:
- One per person on your list. Two contacts called Sam would make every "send this to Sam" a guess. A tie is refused with both people named.
- No
@in the nickname. A query with an at-sign is treated as an address. - Accepted contacts only. You cannot nickname a pending request, a block, or a stranger. Renaming does not tell you whether someone has an account.
Every surface you see — the contact list, compose, the inbox, the draft preview, the send receipt, the thread — uses the same label, built for you. So if you just renamed someone Billy, the draft you are asked to approve says Billy, not the name on their account.
Nicknames win at addressing
When your assistant passes a name, RelayLink tries your nickname first, ahead of real names and the local part of an address. That is the point of setting one.
A name that is not an accepted contact fails the same way an unknown name fails. Pending, blocked, and stranger look identical. The resolver will not become a way to ask "does this person have a RelayLink account?"
The briefing is where it can leak
Your contact list is built per viewer, so the other side never sees your word there. The package is the one thing that actually crosses — and an assistant that just listed "Billy" will happily write "Hey Billy" into the brief.
So the server reads every string the recipient would see, at draft and at send. If a private nickname appears as a whole word, the send is refused. The refusal names the word, names the name they actually go by, and names how you allow it if you mean to.
Both checks matter. Guard only the draft, and the note presented as your words can put the nickname back in.
Three details keep that from becoming a nuisance:
- Only a word they do not already answer to. If you call Richard Hale "Rich," that is already in his name. "Billy" for William Hale is a word you picked.
- Whole words, not pieces. Otherwise a short nickname would be unusable.
- Sharing is yours, for one word. The switch on the contacts page — "They can see this name" — is an explicit grant. A rename clears it. You cannot grant sharing while clearing the nickname.
What is not guarded
A package or reply you type in the portal, and a reply you send by email, are your own words about someone you are writing to, with the contact in front of you. RelayLink does not rewrite those. The guard is on what the assistant composes and on the note it presents as yours.
For how pairs form, see what list_contacts actually shows. For how a name opens a draft, see the shorthand. Set a nickname on your contacts page, or tell your assistant: "For RelayLink, rename them to Billy."