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 period, 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 cus­tomized to suit your needs.

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

Outlook Au­to­Cor­rect options in Windows are extensive and are fully cus­tomiz­able. 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 checking the box or removing the checkmark.

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 cap­i­tal­ized, 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 customize Outlook Au­to­Cor­rect on macOS devices

Outlook Au­to­Cor­rect on macOS devices can be toggled on or off and cus­tomized in a few simple steps. Find out how you can customize 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 cap­i­tal­iza­tion of letters following a period. 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 cap­i­tal­iza­tion. Add further ex­cep­tions as required.

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