Outlook 2016 Auto-Complete for Contact Groups Not Working

Hi Erick,

Just wanted to give everyone an update.... I found this feature, SOMEWHAT, hidden..... 

My boss just blew a giant hole in what we all thought was this problem!

I was informing my boss of the issue, and the workaround by going into the address book and selecting the group. He tells me, "Well, that's weird, I just did it this morning". Confused I asked "You mean you selected it?" He tells me "No, I typed it in and it turned it into my group. It didn't come up, but it did send to the group.."

"WHATT!!!??? Are you serious! Did none of us notice this!?"

So he shows me what he did and, he typed it in, sure enough, no lists come up, it's just blank. So, he continues typing and finishes the full name of the group and hits his tab button. Low and behold, the name turns into a group, with a plus to signify its a group

I went to several other terminals and tried to recreate, it worked, though some were a bit slow to "switch" into the group.

Found the following differences from before.

Before we started typing, multiple choices came up, you selected the group.

Now we start typing, some contacts might show up, but no groups.

If we continue typing the whole group name, as it appears in the address book. (Case sensitive). No groups come up in recent, so it looks like the feature no longer works.

However, if you hit tab, outlook seems to "find" that group after all and turns what you just typed into a group! WOW!

I also noticed that if you had a contact that does come up, it tried to select that instead of the group. 

EXAMPLE: The group is called STARS, but you also have a contact named STAR, it tries to select the contact STAR not the group STARS.

You can avoid the selection by hitting escape and the tab and it will turn it into the group

So this does not "Fix" the issue, still creates more work than before, because you have to type the entire group name, case sensitive, when before, just after a couple letters it would show it for selection. 

Not sure if they turned the old feature into this new feature, but I think we can all agree we would like it back to the way it was before!

A short term fix to this issue is to 'Run' Outlook in Safe Mode - 'Outlook /Safe', once Outlook has opened in Safe Mode immediately close and re-open the application normally. Contact Groups should now be visible once more within the auto-complete, this however is only a short-term fix and eventually the issue does re-occur - awaiting a full update/fix from Microsoft.

Liam

Hi Connie,

So may I know if you have the same issue that the auto-complete works for individual addresses, but except distribution list? If yes, please provide us the information as below:

1. If all the distribution lists cannot be shown?
2. How about other groups?
3. How about others in your organization, if they occur the same issue with you?
4. Have you checked the option Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, Cc and Bcc linesin outlook? For your reference: https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/help/2199226.

I have checked the feature hasn’t been removed in outlook 2016.

So, if you have checked the option and the issue persists, please try to upgrade your outlook version: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Install-Office-updates-2ab296f3-7f03-43a2-8e50-46de917611c5.

Please contact us if you have any concern or update.

Thanks,

Iry

Hi Connie,

Would you mind providing information as my last post? Feel free to contact us if you have any update.

Thanks,

Iry