Moving auto-complete to a new account

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Last reviewed on March 7, 2013

A user wanted to know how to move their auto-complete list in Outlook 2010:

"We're switching from Google Apps to Office 365. Can we migrate auto-complete addresses to the new accounts? We don't have an NK2 to import."

The auto-complete list is stored in .dat files in the RoamCache folder under the Local AppData folders. You can access this folder by typing or pasting the following command into the address bar of Windows Explorer and pressing enter.

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

stream autocomplete

You can use a utility to extract the addresses from the auto-complete stream and insert them into the new auto-complete stream. Or you could rename the .dat file with the name of the new .dat file, however, because the auto-complete tends to corrupt easily, make sure you export the addresses to a CSV file first, otherwise you might lose the addresses.

See Auto-Complete or Nickname Cache (*.NK2) Utilities for utilities that can recover addresses from the auto-complete cache or NK2 file.

Related Posts:

  1. Suggested Contacts and Auto-Complete Lists
  2. Could not complete the operation. One or more parameter values are not valid.
  3. Understanding Outlook's Auto-Complete Cache (*.NK2)
  4. Address Auto-Resolution vs. Auto-Complete

Written by

Diane Poremsky
A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999 and involved in IT support since 1985, Diane is the author of several books and video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.