Clearing Email History Lists in Outlook

One of the great features of Outlook (but also sometimes annoying) is that it remembers all the email addresses of the people that you send email to or receive email from.  This makes it really easy for composing emails except for when you get an email address that is spelled incorrectly in that list.  That can be extremely frustrating.

Turns out that it is super simple to remove that email address.  Just compose and email and start typing the address.  When you see it appear, just use the arrows to select the one that is incorrect and press the Delete key.  It will be gone forever.  Quick and easy.

If you want to clear the entire email history, you can do the following:

  • Exit Outlook
  • Run Windows Explorer
  • Navigate to the C:Documents and SettingsusernameApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook folder (substitute username with your username)
  • Find the file with the NK2 extension and rename or delete it.