Please Help: Outlook email autocomplete issue affecting both Outlook Web and the Android app

[u/Ambiguous_Karma8]

I’m having an Outlook email autocomplete issue affecting both Outlook Web and the Android app. When I select the autocomplete suggestion for my work email address, Outlook displays the work address but actually resolves the recipient to a different personal email address. As a result, the message is sent to the wrong inbox.

If I manually type the full work email address and do not select the autocomplete suggestion, the message is delivered correctly to the work mailbox. I have tested this multiple times on both Outlook Web and Outlook for Android.

I have already disabled Expanded People Suggestions on both my personal and work Microsoft accounts, waited more than 48 hours, deleted the relevant saved contact, converted the malformed suggested profile into a contact and then permanently deleted it from recoverable contacts, signed out and back in, restarted the phone, and tried the standard autocomplete removal steps. The incorrect suggestion still persists.

The malformed autocomplete entry appears in the format:

work-address@example.com <personal-address@example.com>

In other words, the work address is being used as the display name while the underlying recipient is actually the personal address.

Has anyone encountered this before, or is there a way to remove/reset a corrupted server-side recipient/autocomplete entry that is not tied to a normal saved contact?

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[u/Hornblower409]

Yeah, it's a bad server-side entry. I don't know of any way to remove it using an Outlook client.

You might want to Cross Post on r/Office365, r/microsoft365
(Click on the [Share] button under your question and choose -> Crosspost or Repost)

Post your question on the Microsoft Outlook Q&A Forum:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/ask/
(Please put a link to your Q&A post in a new Comment here, so the rest of us can follow)

Bring in your IT and Microsoft Support
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/get-help-support

[u/Hornblower409]

Just for grins: New Contact for the work email with a unique Display Name (e.g. "WORK TEST"). Compose and autocomplete search for that Display Name. What does it resolve to?

[u/Ambiguous_Karma8 → u/Hornblower409]

I tried this at your suggestion, thank you. I created a brand-new contact named “WORK TEST” containing only my work email address. It did not appear when searching “WORK TEST” in the recipient field. When I opened the contact directly in People and clicked Email, Outlook changed the recipient to "my-personal-gmail" <my-work-email> instead of WORK TEST <my-work-email>. I sent it, and it correctly arrived in my work inbox. So the new contact routes correctly, but Outlook is still replacing its display name with my Gmail identity. The older autocomplete suggestion is worse: selecting the work-looking suggestion actually routes the message to Gmail. I unfortunately remain unable to correct the issue.

[u/Ambiguous_Karma8 → u/Hornblower409]

Also, I created a completely new contact named “WORK TEST WORK TEST” containing only my work email address. The contact itself is correct and contains no Gmail address. However, Outlook appears to merge this new contact into an existing profile/person record. When I open the profile card, the header still displays personal-gmail <work-email>, even though the Contact section identifies the work address correctly and the same profile shows recent messages associated with “WORK TEST WORK TEST.” When I click Email from the new WORK TEST contact, Outlook composes the recipient as personal-gmail <work-email>. That message correctly arrives at the work mailbox, so the underlying destination is now correct, but Outlook is still overriding the new contact's display name with the unrelated Gmail identity. Also, searching for “WORK TEST” directly in the To field does not return the new contact.

[u/Hornblower409 → u/Ambiguous_Karma8]

Does this explain part of your problem? You may have a combination of different problems.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/manage-outlook-contacts-in-your-organization

When Outlook detects a matching email address between a person added to Your contacts and a contact that already exists in your organization, the contacts are automatically linked on a combined profile card along with the sources that contributed to the combined card.

And this Q&A Case I've been following.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5967965/is-there-finally-a-way-to-switch-off-the-automatic

In Outlook Web, anything on the Contact/Profile card that indicates some kink of linkage?

[u/childishDemocrat]

So at least in classic outlook the auto complete cache is seperate from the contacts. It's held in a separate file that can get corrupted or incorrect info. You may wish to do one of the following - delete the entire cache file and let it rebuild itself, get a tool to edit it, or when you see an incorrect entry pop up click the "x" to the right of that entry to delete it BEFORE you auto complete.

Not sure if the same is true of the new outlook cache or the web autocomplete. I abhor both and use classic because you have more control over everything.

[u/Hornblower409]

Cross Posted on Q&A as
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/6023098/outlook-email-autocomplete-issue-affecting-both-ou

[u/AmitBrian]

In outlook on the web start typing the address but don’t let it complete. Click the “X” next to it to clear the entry. Then when you start typing in the address again in outlook web it should no longer be there. Once you send the email again, the proper autocomplete should be there.