Stop Automatically Adding to Your Address Book

Have you ever opened your address book, seen a name, and thought, "Who's that?" If so, I'll bet I know why. By default, OE adds everyone to whom you reply to your address book. This can be great because you never have to go searching for the email address of someone who's corresponded via emailif you've sent something back to that person, he or she will show up in the address book. But it can be a nuisance if you ever click Reply to All. When you do, all recipients end up with a residence in your address book, and it can become cluttered rather quickly with a bunch of people you don't know.

You can reverse this default behavior, though, and only add contacts at your discretionnot Outlook Express's. Here's what to do:

1.	From Outlook Express, select Tools | Options.
2.	On the Send tab, clear the "Automatically put people I reply to in my Address Book" check box, as shown in Figure 12-14. Figure 12-14. Prevent Address book overpopulation.

Now, you will have to add senders to the address book the old-school way: right-click on the message they've sent and choose "Add Sender to the Address book" from the context menu.