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Outlook drop down contacts disappeared

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10 replies

by robin

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When I type in the first letter of my contact's email address in the "To", "Cc" or "Bcc" address bar, I no longer get a drop down menu of all my contacts starting with that letter. They were all there on Friday but have simply vanished over the weekend somehow. Can anybody tell me how I can get them back as I do not save every email address I reply to or send to, to my Contacts list and now I am missing a few important email addresses.

10 replies

by thumbsup2

That drop-down list is only a list of recently used email addresses. It is populated as you type full addresses into the address bar or select one from your contact list.

There are many cleaning routines that clean up those recently used "lists". It's hard telling what you might have run to clean up things like this. But, if they've been deleted, they're gone.

From now on, I suggest you put important contact information in permanent storage, like your CONTACT LIST where they're supposed to be stored.

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by robin

Thanks ThumbsUp2. Remarkably the drop down list has re-appeared today (and I all I did last night was hibernate my computer)?? I will spend some time going through the list and saving the important addresses into my Contacts folder - just in case!

by robin

Hi Jackie - I had looked at that thread in the Microsoft Support site already, but it refers to a different problem. However, remarkably the drop down list has re-appeared today (and I all I did last night was hibernate my computer)??

by rob miners

if you add them to your Contacts. I'm glad that they were still there for you. ;)

by anthony.sartini

Not sure why your addresses disappeared and then suddenly reappeared but my advice is to backup your Outlook nicknames file.

Everytime you enter a contact's email address in the To, CC field etc it gets added to a file called Outlook.NK2 which is generally located here: C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

Then, if for some reason your contacts disappear, you can copy back in this nickname file and when you start Outlook it should be fine.

by robin

Thanks very much for the most helpful information.

by thumbsup2

He left out part of the path. It should be:

C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

where is your Windows user name without the brackets.

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by robin

I figured that out, but thanks anyway.

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