When addressing e-mail, Outlook has a feature that allows it to remember previously used names that were entered in any of the address fields (To, Cc, or Bcc). At some point it may become necessary to remove all or some of these cached names and addresses or to turn off this feature entirely.

To turn off this feature:

1. Go to the Tools menu and select Option…
2. From the Preferences tab click the E-mail Options… button
3. From the E-mail Options window click the Advanced E-mail Options… button
4. Under the “When sending a message” section uncheck the box next to “Suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields”
5. Click OK to close out any open windows to return to Microsoft Outlook

By un-checking this box, the “suggest” feature is off. Rechecking the box turns it back on, and returns it to the state it was in before it was turned off.

Removing specific entries from the auto suggest list:

You may want to keep the auto suggest feature on, but remove only those outdated or incorrect entries on the list. To do this you will delete the names when they appear as the message is being addressed (To, Cc, or Bcc).

1. Begin typing the name on the To, Cc, or Bcc line
2. When the list pops-up under your cursor, use the Down Arrow to highlight the name you want to remove
3. Press the Delete key
4. Repeat for each name you wish to delete

This method permanently removes the name from the list. Any deleted name will not show up again unless you enter and use that same name/E-Mail address again on one of the address lines.  However, if the auto suggest list gets corrupted, this will not work.  In such cases, the entire list must be erased and rebuilt.

To delete the auto suggest list:

1. Close any running copies of Microsoft Outlook.
2. Open up My Computer.
3. Make sure hidden files and folders are visible by navigating to Tools -> Folder Options -> Advanced Settings, and select “Show hidden files and folders.”
4. From your C: drive, browse to the folder Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Microsoft Outlook
5. Look for any files with the .NK2 extension – these are the nickname caches. (If they’re not visible there, you may need to search the system for any files that match that extension.)
6. Rename the file to something else. For example, if the file name is Outlook.NK2, you could rename it to Outlook.NK2.bak.
7. Restart Microsoft Outlook – a new Microsoft Outlook nickname cache should now be rebuilt.

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