How do I stop Outlook from auto-populating email addresses?

Question

How do I stop Outlook from auto-populating email addresses?

Jennifer Morgan 0

More than once, I have been bitten because the To email address is populated with a name close to the intended recipient, and I have not caught it. How do I stop this auto-action?

0 comments

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Disable auto-complete settings in Outlook

Details at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/outlook/contacts/outlook-autocomplete-list

To access the AutoComplete setting, follow these steps:

On the File menu, select Options.

Select the Mail tab.

Scroll down until you see Send messages. Make sure that the Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, Cc, and Bcc lines box is checked.

Screenshot of Send messages window, with the Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, Cc, and Bcc lines option checked.

If the above response helps answer your question, remember to "Accept Answer" so that others in the community facing similar issues can easily find the solution. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

hth

Marcin

Answer 2

Senthil kumar 2,330

Hi @Jennifer Morgan

Outlook desktop

File → Options → Mail → scroll to “Send messages” → uncheck “Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, Cc, and Bcc lines.” You can also clear the existing list with the “Empty Auto-Complete List” button, which removes stale/wrong cached addresses.

Outlook (web) / Microsoft 365

Settings → Mail → Compose and reply → turn off suggestions, or clear individual bad entries by hovering the suggestion and clicking the X.

Thanks.

Hornblower409 14,425 Reputation points

2026-07-31T07:40:41.2166667+00:00

@Senthil kumar said

Outlook (web) / Microsoft 365 - ... clear individual bad entries by hovering the suggestion and clicking the X

Microsoft has removed the ability to delete a single entry from your Autocomplete/Suggested People List (the drop down of suggested email addresses you see when you start typing in the "To:" field).

Previously there was an "X" to the right of an Autocomplete entry that would remove it from the list. Now the only method to get rid of a incorrect or out of date Autocomplete entry is to erase the whole list.

See the Answer by "Hornblower409 May 1 2026" - "How to convert your Autocomplete List to Contacts and erase the List" at
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5871874/manually-removing-an-email-address-from-the-sugges?orderby=newest&page=1#answers