Outlook automatically remembers and saves email addresses typed into the To/Cc/Bcc fields.  When you begin to enter text into one of these fields, a list of suggested contacts shall appear to help guide you to one of your known contacts.


There can be times were you've sent an email to an incorrect email address, or a contact's address is changed, however the incorrect or "stale" address shall remain in outlook's auto-complete history list.


There are two ways to correct this list.

  • Delete ONE address from the list
  • Delete ALL addresses from the list

Steps to Delete One Address from the Auto-Complete List

  1. In Outlook, start to create a new message.  Select Home > New Email 
  2. In the new Message window, type the first several characters of the email address in the To/Cc/Bcc field.
  3. When the email address history list appears, hover the mouse over the email address you want to  delete, and then click the Delete button (X) to the right of that address to remove it.

Steps to Delete All Addresses from the Auto-Complete List

At times you may want to start over, remove all the addresses in your auto-complete history.   This can be helpful after several months of sending emails and you may have built up contacts you no longer interact with.  Purging this history helps you avoid inadvertently sending emails out to past contacts


  1. In Outlook, select File > Options.
  2. In the Outlook Options dialog box, please click Mail in the left menu pane,
    and then in the Send messages section on the right click the Empty Auto-Complete List button


  3. An "Are you sure..." warning confirmation message may appear. Click the Yes button to continue
  4. Remember to click the OK button in the Outlook Options to SAVE the changes.


Once you've completed this, ALL email addresses are removed from your history. At first no email addresses will appear when you create new email messages, but over time you'll establish a new history of entries.