Notes on the Outlook Email Address Cache (Auto Complete)
I recently had to remove a couple of users Outlook profiles and re-create them due to some problems. A couple days later they contacted me noting that the email address cache (aka auto complete) was no longer populated with all of their contacts. Unfortunately the data is now lost and they will have to rebuild it over time. I made a mental note to always back this information up moving forward. This would also be a nice touch when moving a user to a new workstation.
Where it is stored.
Enable hidden folders and navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\ and backup the file named <OutlookProfile>.NK2
(Source: WindowsReference.com). This was tested on Windows XP & Office 2003 and may be slightly different in Vista or Office 2007.
How to remove/edit values stored in the cache.
In Outlook just get the bad one to come up and hit the Delete key and it will be removed from the cache. There does not appear to be any free way of editing the NK2 file but there is an application named Ingressor desktop. I can’t imagine editing the data in the NK2 file being worth $40 though! (Source: IISHacks.com)
