You’re probably already familiar with the MS Outlook name list. I’ve compiled a number of Outlook autocomplete tips in this article, so that you can fine-tune this handy Outlook feature just a little bit more and adapt it to your needs.

Just for the sake of completeness: the Outlook autocomplete name list is the feature in Outlook that comes up with a number of your e-mail contacts as you start typing an e-mail address in the “To:” field of a new mail-message:

Outlook autocomplete tips

A lot of people are wondering how they can delete a single entry from the Outlook name suggestion list. This is very simple:

  • Start typing the email address so that the name suggestion list shows up (like in the image above)
  • Navigate with your UP arrow and DOWN arrow key on your keyboard to the unwanted entry
  • Hit the delete key

That was pretty simple, no?

If you don’t just want to remove one entry from the list, but want to disable the autosuggestion feature altogether, this is what you must do:

  • In Outlook, click on the “Tools” menu
  • Select the “preferences” tab
  • Click “e-mail options”
  • Click “advanced e-mail options”
  • Clear the check box next to “Suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields”

Outlook autocomplete tips

Another Outlook autocomplete tip is that the Outlook name suggesting feature sometimes simply stops working. The .nk2 file that holds the Outlook name list tends to go corrupt from time to time, or, it might get destroyed by registry cleaners or other security and privacy tools. That’s why it might be a better idea to not only depend on the Outlook name list, but also create addresses in your Outlook contacts list.

If you have your addresses in your contacts list, the following tip will help you get your Outlook autocomplete list back if your .nk2 file is damaged:

  • Close MS Outlook
  • Find and delete the outlook.nk2 file (check this Outlook autocomplete article if you don’t know where to find it)
  • Disconnect your computer from the internet
  • Open Outlook again
  • Create a new e-mail and select everyone from your contacts list to send it to (that’s why you had to disconnect your pc from the internet first, so not everyone in your contacts gets a bogus message)
  • Hit the send button
  • Close Outlook
  • Open Outlook again and go to your outbox
  • Delete the message
  • Your autocomplete list is now restored, you can safely re-connect your pc to the internet again

Back to the top of these Outlook autocomplete tips

Additional reading: Migrate Outlook autocomplete to another computer