Firstly, let me begin by saying that the auto fill feature that was introduced long ago was meant to be a convenience. The auto-fill feature is overlooked by so many yet those who do use it aren’t quite sure what it is or why it’s there.

Auto-fill is that fancy feature in windows that remembers the most recent entries you’ve made in a field. Whether it’s a website in the address bar in Internet Explorer, an e-mail field on a web-based form, or your TO: field in your e-mail program, auto-fill is there to speed you up.

The most common misconception regarding this feature is that it is a storage area for your most important websites and e-mail addresses.

Auto-fill is a very volatile feature that can change or be completely wiped out at any time. It is not where you want to rely on your e-mail addresses being stored. If Internet Explorer’s cache is cleared out, you won’t have the most recently visited sites. If Outlook’s cache is cleared out, you won’t have the most recently used e-mail addresses. What you will have is a blank field with no auto-fill information.

Is there a way to preserve this information? Yes. Do it properly. Don’t rely on those fields to house your data. Save your contacts in your address books and contacts folders. You won’t lose them if you do this. Save your favorite websites as favorites or make shortcuts to them on the desktop.

If you find that your e-mail addresses are no longer showing up in the To: field automatically, you have no recourse. There’s no way to make them come back magically.

On another note, what if you have information in those fields that isn’t correct? Simply delete the item. How? When you type the first few letters that causes that auto-fill foeld to drop-down, revealing all of the recently used addresses, use your arrow keys to arrow down to the one(s) that are incorrect until it is highlighted, then press delete. The next time you type that person’s e-mail, if you have added them to your contacts, their name will appear.

Problem solved.