Unlike other desktop email clients I have used, Outlook seems to have its own unique way of autocompleting email addresses. (I am using Outlook 2013, but I think this is true also of earlier versions.)

Thus, although I have a gmail account set up with IMAP, and I imported all the contacts, I still can't get the autocomplete to work the way I am used to in native Gmail.

For instance, I have a contact "ymkag...@gmail.com". In Gmail, I type "kag", and the address fills in. But in Outlook, I have to type ymk. This means I have to always remember the first few letters (or numbers) that a email begins with. That's a lot to remember!

The only way I can type "kag" and get a result is by going to advanced search, and that's a lot of trouble to go through every time I want to shoot off a message.

How can I get Outlook 2013 to behave like Gmail, in this respect?

The short answer is that you can't, but if the contact name associated with the address is easier to remember you can start to type that instead.

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Graham Mayor - MS MVP (Word) (2002-2019)
Visit my web site for more programming tips and ready made processes www.gmayor.com

I made a change in the address book, so that it will put family name before given name, and this seems to have helped with the addresses that were giving me trouble. Now, the autocomplete seems to understand what I want. Interestingly, it sometimes won't complete the address right away, but when I send, it does complete it correctly.

thanks!