For years, users have been confused by the way contacts seem to pop into their email To: field even if they have never saved them.

Common wisdom is that Outlook automatically saves them to your contact list. Alas common wisdom is wrong – but if you take a few minutes to understand the way it really works, you’ll be able to make sure your emails always go to the correct address; and that your add-ins to Outlook will work better than ever.

So if I didn’t save these email addresses in Outlook, and if they’re not showing in my contact list, how do they show up in the To: field?

Microsoft saves them; but not exactly in the way you think. Instead, it saves them in an autosaved list to which you don’t have edit access; and that you can’t use in the all the ways you can use your contacts.

There’s room in this auto-save for the last 1,000 emails that your Outlook has used; and the rest get deleted from the list. This is the source of the email address that shows up.

Automatically, if you don’t indicate a different one, when it’s ready to put it into your email distribution automatically, it will use the oldest one in the list that matches what you’ve already typed. So if you have 3 addresses for Dans, 4 addresses for Davids and a Darcy, all within the last 1,000, you’ll see them, and it will choose the oldest if it auto-inserts. So if two of of those Dan addresses are for the same person who changed his email address; you’re likely to email to the one that Dan no longer uses.

How do I get rid of those Outlook email address auto-saved entries I don’t want?

Of course, you can wait until Outlook collects 1,000 email addresses after that one and boots it from the stack; but that could take months and still be a pain until it happens.

A faster solution is to delete it yourself. (That’s right; Outlook allows you to delete these entries; but not change them.). Here’s how:

1. Click [New Email] to start composing an email
2. In the To: field, start to type the email address that you want to remove
3. Once you see it, use your cursor to highlight it on the list by hovering over it with your mouse/cursor (but don’t let it auto-insert)
4. If there’s a big X on the entry, click it.

The next time you type the same characters that you typed to pull it up, it won’t show again.

— The Confirmed Thought Leadership Team

There are a number of ways to make Contacts more powerful and remove the headaches that hold you back. Learn the Essentials or Become an Outlook ALL*STAR by joining us on this learning journey to unlock your skills and improve processes you rely on for your livelihood. It’s part of the Confirmed ALL*STAR Series. Learn about unlocking Outlook for yourself and your organization here.