Microsoft Outlook Address Book storage

[Stationmaster]

I've discovered that somehow Microsoft Outlook stores (somewhere in the Cloud) every single email contact I've ever made, even if the recipient isn't in our PC address list! Yes it's a bit late to find out, and I can see why it could be helpful to some, but I want to STOP it happening! Is there any way to do this, perhaps by ticking a box somewhere I haven't noticed? And is there any way to delete all the stuff from past years that I don't want? I'd like my address book just to contain those addresses I currently use (partly because some addresses are long dead!!!!).

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[ChatGPT]

I've discovered that somehow Microsoft Outlook stores (somewhere in the Cloud) every single email contact I've ever made, even if the recipient isn't in our PC address list! Yes it's a bit late to find out, and I can see why it could be helpful to some, but I want to STOP it happening! Is there any way to do this, perhaps by ticking a box somewhere I haven't noticed? And is there any way to delete all the stuff from past years that I don't want? I'd like my address book just to contain those addresses I currently use (partly because some addresses are long dead!!!!).

Any help would be much appreciated.

{
"response": "You can control the contacts stored in Microsoft Outlook by managing the contacts in your address book. To delete contacts from your address book, you can go to the Contacts section in Outlook and select the contacts you want to remove, then press delete. To prevent Outlook from automatically storing every email contact you make, you can adjust the contact sync settings or disable the automatic creation of contacts for email recipients in the Outlook settings."
}