Outlook.COM [FREE version] "Suggested contacts"

If you may need to delete the autocomplete on your To or Cc Field, below might help:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/manage...

You can also visit the link below for the suggested contatcs folder:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/where-...



Let me know if you may need further assistance.


Regards,

Donald

Please note the title of this thread refers to Outlook.COM.

This thread is NOT about the Outlook clients that you refer to.

There are two sources - one is the autocomplete list which is people you sent mail to.  The other source is addresses who recently sent you mail and your contacts.

Exchange is trying to be helpful (but its more annoying most of the time IMHO) and adds recent senders to the list. It supposedly is time based - so people who sent you mail more recently will be on it and older addresses age off - but it seems like they stick around forever if you don't receive a lot of mail from a wide range of people. 

While examining some elements in the Outlook.com UI to see if I could turn up anything that might shed light on my thread question, I clicked on the "Files" button (paperclip icon) in the lower left corner of the Outlook.com UI, which opened a window titled "All attachments", which listed one old attachment of mine in the right pane.  To my surprise, in the left pane, there was a "People" menu that when expanded showed some---though not all---of the people/companies whose addresses were the ones that were showing up as "Suggested contacts" when composing a new message.  Huh?!  Why are these names, some of whom I never sent/received attachments to/from, in this "Files">"People" menu?  Where are these names being stored?

I should also mention that in the Outlook.com's "People" app (not the menu item shown in the "Files"/Attachments window that I've referred to above), where the user's contacts would be listed, there are NO contacts listed.

What in the heck is going on here?

Diane,

Hi, nice to hear from you.  I've been visiting your great website for years.  The thing is, though, you appear to be referring to Outlook clients or services that are not what I'm talking about here.  I'm not talking about either the traditional/perpetual version of Outlook (which I also use) or "Outlook on the web" (Office 365).  I'm talking about the free version of Outlook.com.

If you have any ideas relating to the issues I've raised in connection with the free version of Outlook.com, I'd be interested to hear them.   

PS Please also see the post I made just above this one.

The attachments list is a list of attachments - and the people in the module are either people who sent you attachments or frequent contacts.. or who knows what. (I have a Microsoft employee on my list - or more accurately, a former employee - the message and attachment she sent me is long gone. I don't use the mailbox for much more than testing, so there are limited # of people for Outlook to add to the list.) 

I asked the product team how to clear that list - but did not get an answer - will need to bug them again. 

>>  I'm talking about the free version of Outlook.com.

Correct. So am I. :)   The autocomplete / recent / suggested addresses is in both outlook.com on the web and outlook desktop and works the same in both. The autocomplete list online may be different than in outlook desktop but the suggestions should be the same. 

For the most part, there is no difference between the free outlook.com and outlook on the web on the business side - except that the consumer side gets new features first. 

Diane,

FWIW, it's your option #3, "who knows what", in my case, because several of the people/organizations listed are neither senders of attachments nor frequent contacts.

As this unexpected list of names in the "Files">"People" menu is a digression from my main question---i.e., "What is the source from which the FREE version of Outlook.com is pulling the "Suggested contacts" shown in the "To" field of a "New message"---I'll suggest that we return to my main question.  Thanks.

>>  I'm talking about the free version of Outlook.com.

Correct. So am I. :)   The autocomplete / recent / suggested addresses is in both outlook.com on the web and outlook desktop and works the same in both. The autocomplete list online may be different than in outlook desktop but the suggestions should be the same. 

OK, thank you for clarifying that. ;^) Since this "Suggested contacts"/autocomplete information is being stored on Microsoft servers, and since there is no setting in the Outlook.com UI allowing the user to prevent this user data from being maintained (and since I am unable to get the "X" at the right of a name entry to function properly), this is a privacy issue.  Aside from any user data that is still shown in the Outlook.com UI, what user data is Microsoft storing?  For example, are any messages that have been "permanently" deleted by the user actually still residing on Microsoft servers?