How to restore auto-complete in Outlook?

February 6, 2008 10:09 AM

Is there a way, in Outlook 2003, to populate the auto-complete field from addresses culled in the Exchange mailbox? Or otherwise recapture addresses and stick them in auto-complete?

I know auto-complete is not something to rely on, but I have a user who "added contacts" via auto-complete. So when I gave him a new laptop and kept all the data and contacts, I excluded the nk2 file (I didn't know people relied on auto-complete to add contacts and it is not backed up on the computer).

Anyway he's livid now that he has to "add contacts" again and refuses to add it any other way but through auto-complete. Isn't there a way to restore auto-complete by going through messages in a PST and picking out e-mail addresses? User has ~3GB of messages. Any quick and dirty way will work.

posted by geoff. to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Wow geoff. I just came across a user who did this about 2 weeks ago. Luckily, I still had the n2k file. I couldn't understand what she was getting at when she kept telling me "all (her) contacts are GONE!". Sorry I can't help, but if it means anything, I feel your pain.
posted by Richat at 10:35 AM on February 6, 2008

Yeah I moved the contact file onto the server, the rub is that this is the second time this has happened to him in the last month (they fired the first guy who "lost the contacts"). He went through after it happened the first time and gathered all his contact e-mail addresses and put it back in through auto-complete. So, he's not looking forward to doing it again, even if I could have a system where a script uploads the nk2 nightly for backups.

I think he'd be happy if I could populate the nk2 file indiscriminately by taking names in his exchange mailbox and slapping them in there. I've found nothing that does that. I know he could search for names and add them as needed, but that's asking too much right now.
posted by geoff. at 10:42 AM on February 6, 2008

Here is a tool for editing an NK2 file.
It can import from a text file.

I would export the sent items folder to a text file, scrub it to fit the import format requested by the software, and then import the email addresses to the new NK2 file. Specifically an NK2 file only holds 1000 names, so you may hit that limit.
posted by disclaimer at 10:43 AM on February 6, 2008

...as an aside, YOU HAVE USERS WITH 3GB MAILBOXES? I'd strongly recommend paring that down, the file size limit on a PST file (which is the fallback format for Exchange mailboxes) can only handle 2 GB in size. You may run into real trouble if you have to restore that mailbox to a PST file for any reason.

Just sayin'.
posted by disclaimer at 10:47 AM on February 6, 2008

Works as claimed, albeit a bit expensive ($350). Outlook exports everything cleanly as it is, so it was a rather simple process.

Yeah the 3GB boxes are a problem that I've brought up, compliance is low and everyone is aware of concerns ("You know there's a very real possibility this will not restore from a backup correctly"). I'm sure it won't be a problem until they experience it themselves and then pout and moan. Damn Google, spoiling the children.
posted by geoff. at 11:14 AM on February 6, 2008

FYI

(1) Exported sent items "to" addresses and names into Excel via Outlook
(2) Spent ~1 hour cleaning up >1000 names
(3) Imported slimmed down version into contacts
(4) Found NK2 program that moves from contacts to NK2 file
posted by geoff. at 6:28 AM on February 8, 2008