Outlook 365 and Outlook ios - delete suggested autocomplete recipeient

Copper Contributor

I researched this issue here for a bit.  I found a similar question, the answers to which, did not remotely solve my problem.

 

In the recent past I received what I determined to be malicious emails with attachments.  I did not recognize the email addresses.  I did not reply, did not save these emails, or make the senders into contacts.  I used “block sender” feature on Outlook 365 and/or “McAfee Anti-spam” on my phone via Outlook for ios to block/delete these emails.

 

In some way, those malicious emails used a derivative of my email address in their name or alias or something.  It is not written in the specific email address but this wording appears in the “name” associated with the malicious email addresses.  Those email addresses now seem to be saved in my cache.

 

Thus, when I type my own email address in the “to” block, these malicious email addresses pop up in the “Other suggestions”.  In ios, those suggestions appear beside my email address, no delineation of “suggested”, “recent”, or “other”. 

 

I have occasionally, in a hurry, accidentally selected one of these malicious email addresses.  In ios, they are sometimes above and sometimes below my email address.  I have caught myself a number of times and corrected the email address but I do not want to guess how many times I may have inadvertently sent email to a malicious address.

 

I just discovered, in an email search, that somehow one of these email addresses is “internal to my organization” and cannot be blocked. I want to end this issue completely.

 

Suggestions I found to correct this were:

I should see an “x” beside the malicious entry when I hover over the autocomplete suggestions.  I see no “x”.  Am I missing something?  Is there some setting that I need to turn on so I can see that “x” which would allow me to remove that address from the cache?

 

Even if I did see this “x”, would it fix the same issue I am having in Outlook for ios?

 

It was also detailed in MS Support

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/manage-suggested-recipients-in-the-to-cc-and-bcc-boxes-wi...

that I CANNOT turn off the “Other suggestions”.  What is up with that?

 

So am I to assume that the lack of controls installed in Outlook 365 and Outlook ios will forever allow these two malicious email addresses to be linked to my email address in autocomplete?  What happens when I get a few more malicious emails with the same issue? 

 

I guess I can just turn autocomplete off completely and be satisfied that this Outlook 365 feature has been compromised by enterprising reprobates.  Please tell me that is not the solution.

 

Any help is appreciated

1 Reply

@RAdams52 

Some further info

Upon re-researching this nagging issue, I now remember this began as a suspicious "shared" One Drive document that was caught by Outlook.  But, as best as I can recollect, this has been going on longer than since May.  So, if I am remembering correctly, this is not the first "communication" from this sender that was caught up in my email.

 

To be clear,

I do not know this person/email address

I am not in business or belong to an organization from which I would be linked with this person/email address

 

Attached are some .pdfs which I have sterilized for my privacy.  They show:

  • A document that was caught by outlook showing my email address, the malicious email address, and the common shared phrase
  • My effort to delete or block the sender to which I was told I could not
  • Some way, it seems, the sender is already being handled as a "contact"
  • Outlook, more recently, with a new similar "shared" document

I'm sure a quick suggestion to this problem may be to uninstall and reinstall Outlook.  But, how will that solve the issue I am having with Outlook for ios?  Will uninstalling and reinstalling be required every time I get a similar bogus shared document from a similar sender?

 

Again, any help is appreciated as is your patience with my lengthy documentation