outlook 2017 for mac turn off autocomplete

Most people will notice that their auto-complete data doesnt move in such situations, but (in most cases at least) your contacts can be moved and migrated as needed.This post will go over the differences between contacts and auto-complete data, as well as the limitations and reasons why auto-complete data cant be transferred for some cases.

Contacts You can always view your contacts in Outlook by clicking the Address Book button or using the hotkey CtrlShiftB ( 0 on MacOS ).

You can also see your contacts at a glance using the contacts pane (hotkey Ctrl3 or 3 on MacOS ).

It should be noted that if youre using an Exchange type email account (Office 365 for example) that there can be multiple parts of your address book where contacts can be saved.

You can see the multiple parts by opening the Address Book then clicking the drop-down menu titled Address Book.

If youre ever in a situation where you think you may have lost your contacts, these are the locations you should check first.

Generally speaking its rare that people lose some or all of their contacts, its usually the case that you dont have a contact saved in Outlooks auto-complete data that causes most people to think theyve lost their contact(s).

This data is used when you begin to type a contacts name or address in Outlook, youll see a little list appear with the contacts it thinks you may be typing out.This data is populated from multiple places, the most common way it will add a contact to the auto-complete data is when you send an email to someone not already in the list.

If you dont have someones address automatically appearing when you begin typing their name, then this is the quickest way to get them added so they appear in the future.Its important to understand that this auto-complete data is completely separate from your saved contacts, you can technically have a persons email address in the auto-complete list that you havent saved in your contacts at all.

The same is true in reverse your contacts may not necessarily appear in the auto-complete list under some circumstances.

Youll also find the Empty Auto-Complete List button in that location which you can use to clear the data, this can be a useful troubleshooting step as well if youre running into issues with auto-complete in Outlook.

Note: If you use Outlook for MacOS there is no setting for the Auto-Complete cache under Outlook Preferences.

The only way you can remove entries from the cache is when to click the X button beside the listed name when youre typing in a text field.

The auto-complete cache cant be moved in most cases as there is other hidden information also saved in the cache related to your account configuration.

So if it is moved over it will usually cause issues preventing your emails from being delivered when you attempt to auto-complete an email address (among other issues).At the very least if your auto-complete cache is cleared or lost, it can be rebuilt just by using Outlook normally.

You may have to look up a contact every so often but its usually a quick process to get back to normal.

This information should help you differentiate between what and where your contacts are and what the Auto-Complete cache is and how it functions, as well as why this data cant be moved in some situations.

If youre interested in more information about the auto-complete cache you can find an article from Microsoft here.

Outlook 2017 For Mac Turn Off Autocomplete