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My contacts are missing or not in the address book

Outlook has 'Contacts' (the folder) and 'Address Book' (the lookup source). They get mixed up after a reinstall.

Try this first

  1. 1Outlook > bottom-left click the People icon. Are your contacts still there? Then nothing is lost; just not exposed as an address book.
  2. 2Right-click the 'Contacts' folder > Properties > Outlook Address Book tab > tick 'Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book'.
  3. 3Close Outlook fully, reopen, and test: new message > click 'To' > choose your contacts folder from the list at the top.
  4. 4Use outlook.office.com? Open People there to confirm contacts are in the cloud and not only local.

When to bring us in

If contacts are genuinely gone (not on web, not on phone), we can roll the mailbox back a few days via M365 recovery. Tell us early.

See also

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