Searching users in global Address lists in Exchange/Teams Online

Question

Hi Everyone,

I am having difficulties searching all the users under my global address list in Teams and Outlook online thus I have to search them manually under sub-address lists like user1_AddressList and user2_AddressList so below is the current hierarchy

global address list

 user1_AddressList 

 user2_AddressList

Users in user1_AddressList were able to users in user2_AddressList and vice versa until a couple of days ago. We contacted MS and they confirmed that this is due to a recent update as we have more than 5k users synced from the on-prem AD to online Exchange and Teams Address lists in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn and that doesn’t make any sense as this update was announced 6 months ago and we faced the issue only recently.

Do you have any suggestions on how to solve this issue?

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi, @Nesma

Based on your description, I understand that you can't search for a user in the global address list, and only in the sub-address list.

Here are some suggestions you can try.

1.In Outlook 2010 and later, go to the "Send/Receive" tab, tap "Send/Receive Group", and then tap "Download Address Book". In the Select Address Book drop-down menu, select Global Address List and click OK.

2.There may be some policies applied to the Global Address List (GAL) that limit the visibility of the user.

If none of the above is a problem, then it may indeed be related to the update. In order to save manpower and improve resource efficiency, Microsoft encourages users to do granular search instead of unlimited browsing, and this change affects browsing in any list of online addresses for more than 500 users.

In addition, I noticed you raised the same issue here as well, you can stay tuned to this thread as well. Searching users in global Address lists in Exchange/Teams Online - Microsoft Community

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