Ways to fix email contacts missing in Outlook

Jai Bhagwan Jha

Published On - April 12, 2024

Outlook is a popular and advanced email client application, which provides specialized features. You can store contacts, emails, calendars, and events all in one place. Outlook helps in making your work easy by organizing and managing your data in a well-mannered way.

Sometimes, in Outlook you may face “Contact missing in Outlook”. This situation can cause problems in sending emails as the information of the client or user is missing in Outlook. In this article, we have provided some solutions which you can use to deal with this scenario.

Reasons behind why contacts are missing in Outlook

There can be various reasons behind contacts missing in Outlook. Some of them are listed below:

• Accidental deletion of data
  Sometimes, contacts get deleted by mistake or unintentionally from the address book or contact list in Outlook which results in missing contacts situation.
• Issues in syncing email
  When Outlook fails to properly sync with email server and other devices then you may face this problem. There can be various reasons like problems with internet connection, incorrect firewall settings, etc.
• Outdated Outlook version
  If you have an outdated Outlook version, then it may result in missing contacts or some other errors in Outlook.
• Corruption in Outlook data file
  The contacts and other information are stored in Outlook data files. If you have a corrupted or damaged Outlook data file, then it will lead to issues with functionality of Outlook. Try to recover corrupt Outlook data file.
• Incorrect email settings
  Incorrect email settings in Outlook may lead to issues in syncing and sending/receiving of emails. Try to fix your email settings to avoid such scenarios.

For troubleshooting this issue, you can follow the solutions listed below:

Synchronization errors can result in inconsistent or missing data, such as contacts and emails. To resolve this issue, ensure that you are connected to the internet and synchronization settings are turned on.

Go to the Send/Receive option in Outlook and ensure that Work Offline is turned off. If it’s turned on, then turn it off. If it’s greyed out, try to fix the Work Offline greyed-out problem.

Make sure Cached Exchange Mode is turned on. If turned off, then turn it on now.

• Open Outlook and then press File >Account Settings >Account Settings.
• Click on your email account and ensure that Cached Exchange Mode is turned on.
• Now, click Next >Finish.
• Restart your Outlook again. You can now see the contacts list there.

Many times, a corrupted Outlook profile can lead to errors in Outlook. You can attempt to create a new profile to resolve this problem. You can recreate a new profile by following the given steps below:

• Open Control Panel.
• Search Mail and click on it.
• Now, click on Show Profile.
• Once there, now click on the Add button to create a new Outlook profile.
• Give a new name, then click on OK.

Sometimes, contacts get deleted by mistake. You can get them back by following the steps mentioned below:

• Open Outlook and click on the Deleted Items folder.
• Now, find the missing contact.
• If you are successful in finding that deleted contact in the Deleted Items folder, just right-click on it to restore it to its original place.

Auto suggest in Outlook is a feature that provides suggestions as you type into the fields while composing an email. Many users think that their contacts got deleted when Outlook stops suggesting them. You can turn on the auto-complete function of Outlook to make it start suggesting the contacts. Follow the steps to enable auto-complete function:

• Open Outlook, then go to File >Options >Mail.
• Look for Send Messages, then ensure that ‘Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, Cc, and Bcc lines‘ is enabled.
• Now, click OK.

You may need to recreate a new Outlook data file if your current data file gets corrupted or oversized, try to fix oversized OST file in MS Outlook.

Recreate a new OST file if your email account is still working and sync it with the address book. In this way you can restore your contacts to the new data file. To create a new OST file, you can follow the steps given below:

• Close Outlook if it’s still open.
• Now press Windows+R key to open run dialogue box.
• Enter %localappdata%/Microsoft/Outlook and click on OK. It will direct you to the default location of the OST file.
• Choose the OST file that is linked with your email account from where the contacts got deleted and copy it to a new location to create a backup of it.
• Once you have taken the backup, delete the old OST file and open Outlook again.

In this way, a new OST file is created. Now, you can sync all the mail, contacts, calendars to the newly created OST file.

A CSV file is a commonly used file format for importing and exporting contacts and other data in Outlook. If you have a backup of your contacts in CSV, then you can restore them from there. Follow the below mentioned steps to import contacts:

• Open Outlook.
• Go to File >Open & Export >Import/Export.
• Click on “Import from another program or file” and click Next.
• Select Comma Separated Values and click OK.
• Click on Browse to locate the file. Now select the option which suits you best and click Next.
• Now, select the contact folder as the destination and click Next >Finish. Once done, check if the missing contacts are back or not.

Conclusion

Contacts in Outlook play a vital role in sending emails. If you are facing “Contacts missing in Outlook”, it can be because your file is damaged or corrupted. Try to fix your corrupted file or convert your file to PST format. You can use Recoveryfix for OST to PST Converter tool to get out of this situation. It’s a versatile, handy and time saving tool and can fix any errors in Outlook easily.