Tip #70 - Outlook Address Auto Complete

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #70 - Outlook Address Auto Complete

Outlook, along with many other email programs, remembers every address you have typed in a To:, Cc: or Bcc: field. This is good. When you start keying in a name or address, the program automatically suggests the contact in its entirety.

Unfortunately, you may have typed the address incorrectly at one point or a contact has changed their email address and the program remembers the mistyped and old as well as the correct information and suggests them indiscriminately. Fortunately, getting rid of entries you no longer want to appear in the auto-complete list is easy.

To Delete an Address from the Outlook Auto-Complete List 

• Create a new email message in Outlook. 
• Start typing the name or address you want to remove. 
• Use the down arrow key to highlight the entry you want to remove  from the list.. 
• Press Del.

I really like the auto-complete feature and find it helpful most of the time but, if for some reason you are not happy with it,  this feature can be turned off permanently.

To Prevent Outlook Address Auto-Completion Altogether 

• Select Tools/Options... from the menu. 
• Go to the Preferences tab. 
• Click E-mail Options.... 
• Now click Advanced E-mail Options... 
• Make sure that “Suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc” fields is not checked.
•  Click OK.
•  Click OK again.
•  Click OK once more. 

This feature is available in most email programs and you can give this solution a try. I also have noticed that in some programs you can right click on an incorrect entry and choose delete.

Happy Computing!