How to change the default Outlook AddressBook contact folder
“My AddressBook is empty when I open it but the contacts are in the contact folder – how do I fix this?”
There are a variety of reasons that the above may occur especially when there are multiple contact folders configured in the Outlook profile.
Things to check
- Is the contact folder where the contacts reside the default contact folder for the profile. To verify, from Outlook menu go to –> File –> Account Settings –> Data files tab –> check to see which data file is set as the default data file which is where the default contact/calendar folders are located.
- is the contact folder configured to be a member of the Outlook AddressBook. The default contact folder is automatically set to be a member of the AddressBook. To verify, right click on the contact folder –> Properties –> Outlook Address Book tab –> is the checkbox for “Show this folder as an email Address Book” checked. If not, it needs to be checked for it to appear in the list of Address Book folder members. The default contact folder will have this checkbox checked and disabled since it’s not possible to remove the default contact folder from the Address Book
- when multiple contact folders exist, which contact folder is set to open by default when the Address Book is opened? To verify this, open the AddressBook from the Outlook ribbon so that the AB menu bar appears –> click on Tools –> Options which will bring up the following screen
From this screen, choose custom and select which contact folder you wish to appear by default when the AB is opened. One of the problems that can be seen from the above screenshot is that there are multiple contact folders with the same name which could easily occur if there are multiple Outlook.com/Exchange accounts configured or old PST files from previous Outlook installs have been added to the profile.
Unfortunately there is no simple way to determine which contact folder is which from the above but there is a way to make things clearer by making this simple change to each contact folder that’s a member of the AB.
- Right-click on the desired contact folder –> Properties –> Outlook Address Book tab
- Give the contact folder a unique name that will appear in the AB folder list as shown in the previous screenshot
Making this change in the above screen does not change the contact folder name that appears in the Outlook Navigation Pane, it is strictly to uniquely identify contact folders that are a member of the Address Book.
Category: Outlook - How To
