How to activate and de­ac­tiv­ate Outlook Auto­Cor­rect

Outlook’s Auto­Cor­rect is a helpful tool that auto­mat­ic­ally corrects typos. Sometimes, however, it can be coun­ter­pro­duct­ive, and you may want to turn it off. We show you how to activate and de­ac­tiv­ate Outlook Auto­Cor­rect and modify its options to suit your needs.

How to activate Outlook Auto­Cor­rect quick guide

1. Navigate to the Auto­Cor­rect settings under File > Options > Email > Spelling and Auto­cor­rect > Auto­Cor­rect Options….
2. Here you can either de­ac­tiv­ate or activate Outlook Auto­Cor­rect options as well as create new rules and ex­cep­tions.

How to use Auto­Cor­rect and Auto­Format

Outlook’s automatic cor­rec­tion options Auto­Cor­rect and Auto­Format have two main functions. Auto­Cor­rect adjusts mis­spelled words and typos (e.g., replacing ‘woring’ with ‘working’). With Outlook Auto­Cor­rect, you can also convert character strings to symbols and special char­ac­ters, for example (c) to © or (r) to ®. The auto­cor­rec­tion function also makes it even easier to use smileys and emojis in Outlook emails.

Auto­Format, on the other hand, auto­mat­ic­ally adds text format­ting. When you enter the URL of a website, for example, the function will add a hyperlink auto­mat­ic­ally. If you start a list with ‘1’., the list will be continued with ‘2.’ when you press Enter.

How to de­ac­tiv­ate Outlook Auto­Cor­rect and why you might need to

Outlook Auto­Cor­rect isn’t always helpful or desirable. For example, when you use ab­bre­vi­ations that end with a full stop, Auto­Cor­rect will start the next letter with a capital, which isn’t what you want. You may also find the automatic addition of hy­per­links to website addresses to be ir­rit­at­ing.

Auto­Cor­rect can also be a nuisance when writing in a different language because the function auto­mat­ic­ally converts a foreign language into English. Often, you may not even be aware that Auto­Cor­rect has corrected the text in an email. This can be em­bar­rass­ing because it’s often difficult to retrieve sent Outlook emails.

The good news is that Outlook Auto­Cor­rect can be disabled at any time or cus­tom­ised to suit your needs.

How to enable, disable and customise Outlook Auto­Cor­rect on Windows devices

Outlook Auto­Cor­rect options in Windows are extensive and are fully cus­tom­is­able. You can even add new rules to Auto­Cor­rect. Follow our step-by-step in­struc­tions to enable and disable Outlook Auto­Cor­rect in Windows and adjust in­di­vidu­al settings.

Step 1: Click File in the Outlook menu bar to launch the Info menu, which contains general in­form­a­tion and options.

Step 2: Select Options from the Account In­form­a­tion window.

Step 3: In Options, switch to the Mail section and select Spelling and Auto­cor­rect….

Step 4: If it doesn’t auto­mat­ic­ally launch, select Proofing from the Editor Options and click Auto­Cor­rect Options….

Step 5: Outlook Auto­Cor­rect options will now launch in a new window. Here, you can activate or de­ac­tiv­ate options by ticking the box or removing the tick.

Below the Auto­Cor­rect tab you can, for example, adjust whether you want to start new sentences or table cells using uppercase letters. A list of strings and mis­spellings of common words that Outlook has auto­cor­rec­ted can be viewed in this section. You can add words and common mis­spellings to the list. To do this, simply add your own entries in the Replace and With section.

Step 6: If you click on Ex­cep­tions in Auto­Cor­rect, you can define in­di­vidu­al rules for what you would like exempted from automatic cor­rec­tions. Here, you’ll also find a long list of ab­bre­vi­ations that are not cap­it­al­ised, and which can be changed as needed. Since Microsoft Outlook uses the Microsoft Word settings and dic­tion­ar­ies, the Outlook options are similar to those that are available in Auto­Cor­rect and spell check in Word.

Step 7: Tend to use a lot of math­em­at­ic­al formulas in your emails? You can adjust the Math Auto­Cor­rect tab options, which include a long list of character com­bin­a­tions and arith­met­ic symbols that can be activated for Auto­Cor­rect.

Step 8: Enable and disable options for auto-format­ting from the Auto­Format As You Type and Auto­Format tabs. You can, for example, enable certain options for the creation of fractions and hy­per­links, the insertion of auto-bullets and numbering and the format­ting of quotation marks.

How to enable, disable and customise Outlook Auto­Cor­rect on macOS devices

Outlook Auto­Cor­rect on macOS devices can be toggled on or off and cus­tom­ised in a few simple steps. Find out how you can customise Outlook Auto­Cor­rect below.

Step 1: Click on Outlook in the Outlook menu bar and select Pref­er­ences…. Al­tern­at­ively, you can navigate to the settings using the key com­bin­a­tion [Command] + [,].

Step 2: Click on Auto­Cor­rect in the Personal Settings section.

Step 3: You now have three options: Auto­Cor­rect, Auto­Format and Text Com­ple­tion. With Auto­Cor­rect, you can specify whether Outlook should auto­mat­ic­ally correct typos and errors of symbol entries such as cap­it­al­isa­tion of letters following a full stop. You can add commands to the Outlook Auto­Cor­rect list by clicking the plus sign (+) and making a new entry.

Step 4: Select Ex­cep­tions … to view which ab­bre­vi­ations should not be followed by automatic cap­it­al­isa­tion. Add further ex­cep­tions as required.

Step 5: When you click on Auto­Format, you can view automatic format­ting options that can be cus­tom­ised in Outlook. For example, you can active and de­ac­tiv­ate the options for adding automatic numbered lists, inserting hy­per­links and format­ting quotation marks.