Outlook Contacts Not Showing When Composing New Message

If your Outlook contacts are not showing up when you’re composing a new message, it can be due to various reasons. Here’s a troubleshooting guide to help you address this issue.

Outlook Contacts Not Showing When Composing New Message

Check the Address Book settings:

• a. Go to “Tools” and then “Address Book” (or simply press CTRL+SHIFT+B).
• b. In the Address Book window, go to “Tools”, then “Options”.
• c. Under “Show this address list first:”, ensure your desired contact list (usually “Contacts”) is selected.

Ensure the Contacts folder is an Address Book:

• a. In Outlook, right-click on your “Contacts” folder.
• b. Select “Properties”.
• c. Go to the “Outlook Address Book” tab.
• d. Ensure that “Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book” is checked. If it’s not, check it.

Rebuild your Profile:

Sometimes, Outlook profiles can become corrupt. If this happens, creating a new profile can help:

• a. Go to Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles.
• b. Click on “Add” to create a new profile.
• c. Follow the prompts to add your email account to this new profile.
• d. Once done, set this new profile as the default.
• e. Open Outlook with the new profile and check if the contacts appear now.

Ensure Outlook is up-to-date:

• Make sure that you have installed the latest updates for Outlook. Sometimes, bugs or issues are fixed in subsequent updates.

Check AutoComplete Settings:

• If you are specifically missing the autocomplete dropdown when typing an email address: a. Go to “File” > “Options”.
• b. Click on “Mail”.
• c. Scroll down to the “Send messages” section.
• d. Ensure “Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, Cc, and Bcc lines” is checked.

Reset the AutoComplete Cache:

The auto-complete cache can sometimes become corrupt and cause issues.

• a. Close Outlook.
• b. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.
• c. Type (or paste) %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Outlook and press Enter.
• d. Look for files with the “.dat” extension named “Stream_Autocomplete”. Rename or delete this file.
• e. Re-open Outlook and test again.

Check if you’re in Offline Mode:

Being in offline mode can cause certain features, including contact look-up, to not work.

• a. Open Outlook.
• b. Check the bottom right of your Outlook window. If it says “Working Offline”, you’ll want to switch back to online mode.
• c. To switch to online mode, go to the “Send/Receive” tab and click on “Work Offline” to toggle it off.

Check for Add-ins:

Sometimes, third-party add-ins can interfere with Outlook’s functionality.

• a. Go to “File” > “Options” > “Add-Ins”.
• b. At the bottom where it says “Manage”, select “COM Add-ins” and click “Go”.
• c. Uncheck all the add-ins to disable them and then restart Outlook.
• d. If contacts show up now, enable the add-ins one by one and restart Outlook each time to find the problematic add-in.

Use Microsoft’s SARA (Support and Recovery Assistant):

• Microsoft has a tool called SARA that can diagnose and fix issues with Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook. You might consider downloading and running this tool.

If none of the above solutions work, there might be deeper issues, and you might need to reach out to Microsoft Support or consider seeking assistance from IT professionals familiar with Outlook.