Outlook: Contact Suggestions and iSchool Email Lists

Outlook automatically fills in display names for email addresses it recognizes through a feature called Contact Suggestions. It creates auto-entries for email addresses so that when you start typing out a name or email it can pull something up for you. An unfortunate side effect of this feature is that someone will type a name into the address field and, following the familiar behavior of auto-complete, will select the first entry that comes up. Which may in fact be a list address instead. Besides generally being aware of this behavior in Outlook and double checking your sending address, there are three ways you can stop these entries from showing up in the first place.

Erase the specific automatic entry for the list email

Note: Once complete, this email address will not appear as a suggested contact or auto-complete entry unless you interact with that an email from that address first, but it may still occur in the future and you will need to remain aware of this behavior.

  1. Click into the ‘To:’ field and fully enter the iSchool list email you want to check (all-faculty-staff@ischool.illinois.edu is a common list address that this happens to).
  2. Review the entries that appear, and if you have one for that list, look at the name Outlook assigns, if any. If it is not the intended name, then click the ‘x’ to the right of that entry to remove it (if you don’t see an ‘x’ to the right of the entry then hover your mouse over the entry first).

Manually create an Outlook Contact for the list

Note: This will prevent the Contact Suggestions feature from assigning a name automatically to whatever contact you create, and can be used avoid running into the issue described.

  1. Follow Microsoft's instructions for adding a Contact in Outlook on your Windows or Mac PC.
  2. Add the email address of the list you want to add, and provide the name you want to use.
  3. Type in the beginning of the name you gave your contact, and confirm it comes up as expected.

Turn off the Contact Suggestions feature

Note: None of your external contacts (email addresses that aren’t @illinois.edu) or list emails (@ischool.illinois.edu or @lists.illinois.edu) will appear as auto-complete entries anymore unless you’ve saved them manually as contacts. You can still email these addresses by typing out the full email address.

  1. Sign into your Microsoft Privacy Settings page.
  2. Click the dropdown arrow to expand the ‘Manage contact suggestions and discovery’ section.
  3. Click the toggle button next to Discovered Contacts to turn it off.
  4. Click ‘Clear Data’

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out by:

Emailing ischool-support@illinois.edu

Messaging online via Tech Chat

Calling 217-244-4903 / 800-377-1892


Keywords:
Outlook, Microsoft, Contact Suggestions, List, Lists, Listserv, Email 
Doc ID:
160827
Owned by:
Joey K. in School of Information Sciences
Created:
2026-04-22
Updated:
2026-04-22
Sites:
University of Illinois School of Information Sciences