Outlook: Disable Auto-Complete of your own Name

Outlook has an editor feature that suggests to insert your full name whenever you start typing your first name. This is really annoying because you might want to use only your first name for signing off your emails (i.e. "Regards, John", instead of "Regards, John Doe").

You can switch it off, but not in the auto-correct or auto-format options, as you might have expected. Outlook has hidden it under "Quick Parts" and "Building Blocks". Here is how to disable this annoying feature:

  • Create a new e-mail message
  • Make sure you have selected HTML as the mail format ("Format Text" tab > HTML)
  • Click into the body text area and from the "Insert" tab, select "Quick Parts" and then "AutoText"
  • Right-click one of the quick parts and select "Organize and delete", this will open something called the "Building blocks organizer".
  • Remove the Quick Parts containing your name

Voila - the annoying auto-complete of your name is gone.

You can also disable the whole "Auto-Complete" feature, but this will stop all auto-complete functionality:

  • Go to File > Options > Mail > Spelling and AutoCorrect > Advanced
  • Then disable the option "Show AutoComplete suggestions".

33 thoughts on “Outlook: Disable Auto-Complete of your own Name”

  1. OMG - this has driven me crazy for months, why didn't I think to the "Quick Parts" menu - it's such an intuitive term ...

  2. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

    This has been so frustrating for me and I could NOT figure out how to turn off through MS help.

  3. Thanks a lot! I was searching for that forever and only found tips on autocomplete in the TO, CC.
    Solved my problem!

  4. Thanks a lot, every time my full name was insert and couldn't find the why. This helped and saves me a lot of time.

  5. Since I can't find anywhere how to do this on Mac. Here is a workaround.
    Outlook->Preferences->AutoCorrect
    Click the plus at the bottom of the window.
    Add your name to the list and just replace it with the same text.
    For example,
    Replace | With
    Bob | Bob

    Works! :-)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *