Outlook contacts problem cannot view contacts as address book

Outlook contacts problem, as a default Outlook is setup not to allow contacts to be seen as an address book in Outlook, this in turn means it’s a problem when composing an email as Outlook will not recognise your contacts directly.

To change this, from Outlook Right Click on your Contacts folder, select the Outlook Address Book tab, and select Show this folder as an e-mail address book .

But what if the option is greyed out? How can we convert outlook contacts to address book?

This can easily be rectified by following the next..

Firstly close Outlook,

Go to system mail properties.
This can be accessed from the Start Menu > Control Panel > Mail

Select E-Mail accounts

Under the Directory sub heading select view or change existing directories or address books

Select next

Now Select add > Additional Address Books and select Outlook Address Book > Next > Click ok to the restart out look prompt > Finish

Relaunch Outlook and Right click on Contacts > Select Properties > Outlook Address Book tab , now you should be able to select Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book.

If the Option is still greyed out it means Outlook was not closed down fully, Outlook has a habit of still running as a process even if you quit the application.

Close Outlook again, launch task manager, ( hit the CTRL ALT DEL keys together), select Task Manager and select the Processes tab > look for a process called Outlook.exe and select End Process . Close task manager and Launch Outlook and try again.

Once you’ve added your contacts as an Outlook address book launch the address book, either from the menu icon or Tools menu > address book.

From the Tools menu select Options, now you’ll see all available address books, its good practice to move the smallest address books to the top using the side arrows, this way Outlook does not have to waste time searching the larger address books beforehand.

Once done compose a new message and test one of your contacts names, to get it to resolve faster hit the CTRL & K keys

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