Outlook can feel slow when opening emails or contact cards. This lag is often caused by background features that fetch extra information. People Insights and LinkedIn lookups search the web for details about your contacts. Turning these features off can make Outlook load faster and improve privacy.
Key Takeaways: Disabling People Insights and LinkedIn Lookups
- File > Options > People > People Insights: This is the main control panel for turning off contact information lookups from the web.
- Uncheck “Show the People Insights pane”: This single setting stops the information pane from appearing and loading data in emails.
- Uncheck “Include LinkedIn information”: This prevents Outlook from specifically querying LinkedIn servers for profile details.
What People Insights and LinkedIn Lookups Do
People Insights is a Microsoft 365 feature that displays a pane in Outlook. This pane shows information about the people you email. It pulls data from public sources like your organization’s directory, news articles, and LinkedIn profiles. The LinkedIn lookup is a specific part of this feature.
When you open an email, Outlook can query these services in the background. It tries to find job titles, recent company news, and shared connections. This process uses internet bandwidth and processing power. For users with many contacts or slower connections, it can cause noticeable delays. Disabling it stops these background requests.
Privacy and Performance Considerations
Some organizations disable these features by default for privacy reasons. The lookups send contact names from your emails to Microsoft and LinkedIn servers. If you work with sensitive client information, you may want to prevent this. From a performance view, stopping these lookups reduces the work Outlook does before an email fully loads. This is most helpful on older computers or when using Outlook over a VPN.
Steps to Turn Off People Insights in Outlook
You can disable the main feature and the LinkedIn component with a few clicks. The settings are in the same dialog box. Follow these steps for the Outlook desktop application.
- Open Outlook Options
Launch Outlook on your Windows PC. Click the File tab in the top-left corner. Select Options from the left-hand menu. This opens the Outlook Options window. - Navigate to People Settings
In the Outlook Options window, find and click the People category on the left sidebar. This section controls contact and people-related features. - Disable the Insights Pane
Look for the People Insights section on the right. Uncheck the box labeled “Show the People Insights pane”. This action immediately hides the pane and stops its data loading. - Disable LinkedIn Lookups
Directly below the first checkbox, you will see another option: “Include LinkedIn information”. Uncheck this box as well. This stops the specific queries to LinkedIn. - Apply the Changes
Click the OK button at the bottom of the Outlook Options window. You may need to restart Outlook for the changes to take full effect. Close and reopen the application.
Common Mistakes and Things to Avoid
Outlook on the Web Still Shows Insights
The desktop settings do not affect Outlook on the web. If you use Outlook in a browser, you must disable it there separately. Click the Settings gear icon, then select Mail > General > People. Find the “Show profile card insights” option and turn it off. The LinkedIn toggle is usually in the same menu.
Feature is Grayed Out or Managed by Admin
If the checkboxes in Outlook Options are unavailable, your organization controls this setting. System administrators can enforce these features via Microsoft 365 group policy. In this case, you cannot change the setting yourself. Contact your IT support department to request a change for performance reasons.
Clearing the Cached Insights Data
Disabling the feature stops new data from loading. It does not automatically delete information already stored on your computer. For a complete cleanup, you can clear the local cache. Go to File > Options > Advanced. Click the “Empty Auto-Complete List” button. Also, run Disk Cleanup in Windows and select “Temporary Files”.
People Insights Settings: On vs Off
| Item | People Insights Enabled | People Insights Disabled |
|---|---|---|
| Email Loading Speed | Potentially slower due to background lookups | Faster, no external queries |
| Privacy | Sends contact names to Microsoft/LinkedIn | No external data sharing |
| Contact Card Information | Shows web-sourced job titles, news, photos | Shows only information from saved contacts |
| Network Usage | Uses internet bandwidth for data fetching | Minimal network use after loading |
| Pane in Reading View | People Insights pane appears on the right | No extra pane, cleaner interface |
You can now use Outlook with improved speed by stopping background lookups. Check the People settings if you switch to a new computer, as defaults may apply. For further performance gains, consider disabling other non-essential add-ins via File > Options > Add-ins. Use the COM Add-ins manager to turn off ones you do not need.