Expanded Suggestions all of a sudden wont show up at all

Question

I am using the new version of outlook. A month ago I went to email a client that I email almost daily and I always type in the first 3 letters of their email and the suggestion list pulls them up, but out of nowhere one day this stopped happening. I was having to type in their full email and still the suggestion list wouldn't pull them up. I started doing research and I checked my setting to make sure nothing changed and the only thing I could find online was telling me to go to Settings > General > Privacy & Data > and under Suggested People to select ' Clear data and turn off ' to try and reset the suggestions to fix the problem. Well this was a mistake because all it did was eliminate my expanded suggestions completely. So now instead of the one client email not showing up, none of them will show up! The only emails that will show up in the list now when I go to create an email is work emails within the company I work at. I have been creating a contacts list over the past 3 weeks as an alternative way to quickly send emails however when I research online it says that over time the suggestion list will grow based off who I am emailing recently and frequently however nothing is updating to the suggestions list. I email the same 5-10 people daily and none of them have added to the list over the past 3 weeks. I really regret clearing the cache now and it seems it will never go back to the way it was. Can anyone please help me????

Answer 1

Hi @Chloe Goode,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A Forum.

Based on your description, it appears your issue may be related to incident EX1162604, which occurred about a month ago and could have impacted your cloud-based data.

So, I'd love to know if you first encountered this issue via Outlook for Web or New Outlook app?

You've already cleared the cache resets Outlook’s Auto-Complete list (also known as Suggested Contacts). In the new Outlook experience, this list is rebuilt gradually based on your recent email activity. Unlike older versions, the process now relies more on cloud syncing than local cache, which can take some time to reflect changes.

It’s great that you’ve already re-enabled the Suggested Recent Recipients feature, as shown in the image below, since that’s an important step toward restoring your contact suggestions.

If you're using Outlook with Microsoft 365 or Exchange, it's important to ensure your contacts are syncing correctly.

Adding frequent recipients to your Contacts list, as you’ve already started doing, is a smart workaround while the suggestion list rebuilds.

Additionally, try sending emails to those frequent contacts using the web version of Outlook. This can often help repopulate the cloud-based suggestion list more effectively.

If the issue continues, I recommend reaching out to your IT administrator and requesting that they remove and reassign your Microsoft 365 license, as this has resolved similar issues for other users.

However, if the issue persists after several week, I'd recommend you request your IT admin to raise a ticket to the Microsoft Support team on your behalf as soon as possible to have them check your back-end logs and conduct live session troubleshoot for you.

 To create a Support ticket, please use the administrator account to go to: Microsoft 365 admin center  

• Please follow this article: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn.  
• On right bottom corner click on "Help & support"     
• 
• After that choose the "Contact support".    
• 
• Fill out the required information in the form, including a description of the issue you are experiencing.  
• Click on the "Create" button to submit your request. Which will give you a ticket number.  
• Once your request is submitted, a support engineer will be assigned to your case and will contact you to provide assistance.  

They can also contact them via phone number to Microsoft Support: 

• Visit Phone Number – Microsoft Support  
• Select your country/region own phone number for support.   

 

Please understand the scope of support we’re able to provide through this forum. As moderators, our role is to offer general guidance and help troubleshoot common issues. However, we don’t have access to the internal tools or permissions required to resolve certain account-specific or backend problems.

 

I truly wish I could assist you further, and I appreciate your understanding and patience as we work within these limitations.

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this. 

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. 

I'm looking forward to your reply. 

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