Users are reporting a problem in Outlook 2019, 2016, and Outlook 365: the autocomplete list is messed up. It may open upward, not downward, the autocomplete lines may be taller than normal, and you cannot delete entries from the list using your mouse, only the Delete key.
In Outlook 2016 and 2019 the menu is larger (and has initial circles), plus the X is missing to delete autocomplete entries.
This is a bug in the latest Office updates and Microsoft is aware of the problem. The only workaround for Office 2016 and 2019 is to rollback to the previous build. Outlook 365 users can delete the DisableAutoCompleteUpdate value from the registry.
If you are using the DisableAutoCompleteUpdate registry key so Outlook uses the older simple autocomplete list, removing or renaming the value should fix the autocomplete list opening upward.
The key is at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options
DWORD: DisableAutoCompleteUpdate
How to revert to an older build
If you want to rollback your office installation, set Outlook / Office to not install updates automatically then use the rollback script to go back a build or two.
Type cmd on the Start screen to find the Command Prompt then right click on it and choose Run as Administrator
Paste this in the command window and press enter to revert to the April 23 build.
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\officec2rclient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.13901.20462
| Recent build numbers | |
|---|---|
| Release Date & Version | Build number |
| April 29, 2021 Version 2104 | 13929.20296 |
| April 23, 2021 Version 2103 | 13901.20462 |
| April 13, 2021 Version 2103 | 13901.20400 |
Dear Dr. Diane,
Thank you so much! My users were about to hurt me... their battle cry is always "you should test Microsoft's updates before allowing us to suffer"... On a team of one person (3 if you count me, myself and I) I am not really setup to QA every Microsoft patch alone for all their products. But somehow you manage to do it!
Thanks for sharing your prescription for better computing!
Sincerely,
William
I have not noticed any issue with autocomplete but I did notice that MS removed the built in date searches (i.e. all mail this week). I reverted back to 13901.20400 but that didn't help. My second laptop has version 2008, build 13127.21506 but it won't let me revert on my primary laptop. Any idea how to get the "all mail last week" function back?
They're improving search and instead of the received:thisweek type searches, you can use natural language - so try typing received this week in the search field and see if it works for you. I'm not sure if they will add commands for the natural language searches.
When I search for received this week, I get mail that was received Sunday until now and a banner at the top of the search results. (see screenshot) "received Last 7 days" search did not work. :(
I have managed to roll back my Office 2019 but the problem still exists, kind of! It is toggling between working and not working everytime I exit from Outlook 2019. Is there a way of fixing this?
Btw, I've been experiencing another Outlook 2019 issue for the past week. When sending emails, some emails don't get stored in Sent Items folder.
They do get sent out but a copy doesn't get stored. It is a random effect. Has anyone else noticed this over the past week? I'd appreciate your help.
Thank you from Ireland.
What do you mean by this? " It is toggling between working and not working everytime I exit from Outlook 2019. " ?
On sent messages - I've seen a few reports over the last week or so - only the last 2 mentioned outlook 20109 and one user (did not mention Outlook version) was for a gmail account, so I passed it off as "user error" s a gmail saves all messages sent through its service. I'll test it in my 2019 installs and see if I can repro.
Ok, after roll-back I noticed "Use Auto-Complete List ..." is correctly selected under File>Options>Mail>Send Messages. The auto-complete function works and all is good.
If I exit out of Outlook 2019 and go back in, this time "Use Auto-Complete List ..." is not selected and the function does NOT work.
If I exit again and go back in, "Use Auto-Complete List ..." is selected again.
The above sequence repeats over and over.
That sounds like the cloud bug - File > Options > General - do you have an option at the top to sync settings to the cloud? Uncheck it. The settings should be stable once you do.
Outlook is not saving preferences (slipstick.com)
Sent messages: I have seen this odd sent problem on a couple of computers lately too with onsite Microsoft Exchange 2016 and Outlook 2016 (Win 10 Pro). Some emails aren't showing up in the Sent folder, but yet if you know what to search for, we've luckily been able to find them and use Outlook's tool to "Move" them from wherever the heck they are stored to where we could get at them. Not sure what is going on with that one yet. But we just ran into this at work with a colleague of mine yesterday when he was trying to find something he had sent to an outside user to confirm he had sent it. Scary/oddly enough this was noticed on an email that had been sent out on April 1, 2021! (Hmm... cruel Microsoft April Fool's joke?? Ha)
Are they replies? There is an option to save sent items with replies and the 'save settings to cloud' option is known to change preferences.
When they are found, the folder name should show if you hover over the message in the results or you can add the in folder field to the view - it would be interesting to know where they are going.
Thank you for the Fix, was very helpful
Perfect. Thanks so much for the solution. This has been driving me batty for a couple days!
Did not work for me. Not sure why.
The key didn't work or rolling back didn't work?
The key will fix it only in office 365 - IF you set the key.
Rolling back should fix it for everyone.
Massive relief to find this, and huge respect to Diane
BIG Thank you !!!!
Do you think Microsoft will fix this in the next Windows updates?
It will be fixed in an office update - expected in approximately 2 weeks.