Office 2010 vs Office 365

Perhaps my best bet would be to find a 3rd party mail program that could coordinate these accounts with a central data base for contacts, and stop fighting Outlook? Do you have an ideas for that?

I have really appreciated your help.

Honestly, not sure what you mean by that. No email client stores contacts in a central location - it's all governed by how (POP3, Imap, Exchange) those connect to the email accounts.

The fact that you have an Outlook.com account, your contact/calendar info contained in the Outlook.com contact/calendar folders would be accessible by all devices when the account is added (configured) to the device including your Android phone.

As for data files in Outlook

For Outlook '2010 and later (ergo - all Outlook versions)

POP3 accounts are stored in a PST file with contact/calendar data being local to the device where the account is configured

For Outlook '2010

IMAP accounts use 2 PST files - one for email folders which are sync'd with the server and another for contact/calendar folders which like POP3 are local to the device

For Outlook '2013 and later

IMAP accounts use an .OST file which sync's with the server for email folders. Contact/calendar folders have the words "This Computer Only" in the the folder description and local to the computer where the account is configured

Outlook.com accounts

If configured as an Exchange or IMAP account - it uses an .OST data file.

Can be configured as either POP3, IMAP or Exchange (the default). If configured as POP3 or IMAP, contact/calendar data is not sync'd with the server. Not a limitation of any email client whether Outlook or otherwise, it's an industry standard definition of the protocol.

Store your contact/calendar data in an Outlook.com account folders and the data will be accessible by all devices connecting to the email account as long as Exchange (Exchange ActiveSync) is used as the protocol. The only other thing that you would need to ensure is to set the Outlook.com data file as the "default data file" in Outlook desktop (any version). To do that, go to File --> Account Settings --> Data Files tab --> select the Outlook.com .ost data file and set it as the default.

You might want to start with answering a more basic question given the information above "What problems exactly are you encountering"? (Don't think upgrading to Office 365 is going to resolve anything that you can't deal with in '2010 so first order of business would be to address the problem(s))

.......... but all Office 2010 which means different Outlook files and operations, This had become very difficult to manage- especially contacts.

For this reason only, I am considering Office 365, but I have questions.

To address one major misconception................

Being able to share email account data among different devices has nothing to do with the version of Office installed on a given device but has everything to do with the protocol used to connect to a given email account (where protocol = POP3, Imap, Exchange).

Quick Overview

POP3 - is a one way one-time download of the account's <Inbox>. There is an option to "Leave messages on server" if you want multiple devices to see the contents of the <Inbox> on another device. Contact/calendar data is local to the computer/device where the account is configured

not sync'd with the server).

IMAP - is a bi-directional sync with the server of the email folders. The data file associated with an Outlook account configured using IMAP is a mirror of what's contained on the server. Contact/calendar data is local to the computer/device where the account is configured (not sync'd with the server).

Exchange - all item types (email, contact/calendar etc are bi-directionally sync'd with the server. Bi-directional sync = what happens on one side gets sync'd with the other.

Just going by the description, you are not using/do not have Exchange accounts. In that scenario, if you want to share your contact/calendar data, one way to go about that is to create a free Outlook.com account (which is an Exchange account), copy the contact/calendar data to corresponding folders for the Outlook.com account and when done, just add the Outlook.com account to any other computers/devices.

For the other part of your question...............

Office 365 is merely a subscription version of the Office suite. No different then Office 2010, just the most current version of the desktop apps which is paid for annually (hence - "subscription"). Office 2019 on the other hand is a one-time perpetual license for the Office suite for one-computer.

Purely in terms of licensing the software, getting an Office 365 subscription would be the most economical way to go but in terms of the software - it's installed on the computer just like Office 2010 is.

Many people make the mistake of referring to an Office 365 email account. It's a mistake since Office, in and of itself, does not include an email account outside of the free Outlook.com account associated with the MS Account used to make a purchase. There are different versions of the Office subscription suite which do include an Exchange account but that is a "paid" option or to put it another way, an Office 365 subscription with a hosted Exchange account is more expensive than one without.

Office 365 Home or Personal does not include a hosted Exchange account

Office 365 Business does

https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-office-products?tab=1

.......... but all Office 2010 which means different Outlook files and operations, This had become very difficult to manage- especially contacts.

For this reason only, I am considering Office 365, but I have questions.

To address one major misconception................

Being able to share email account data among different devices has nothing to do with the version of Office installed on a given device but has everything to do with the protocol used to connect to a given email account (where protocol = POP3, Imap, Exchange).

Quick Overview

POP3 - is a one way one-time download of the account's <Inbox>. There is an option to "Leave messages on server" if you want multiple devices to see the contents of the <Inbox> on another device. Contact/calendar data is local to the computer/device where the account is configured

not sync'd with the server).

IMAP - is a bi-directional sync with the server of the email folders. The data file associated with an Outlook account configured using IMAP is a mirror of what's contained on the server. Contact/calendar data is local to the computer/device where the account is configured (not sync'd with the server).

Exchange - all item types (email, contact/calendar etc are bi-directionally sync'd with the server. Bi-directional sync = what happens on one side gets sync'd with the other.

Just going by the description, you are not using/do not have Exchange accounts. In that scenario, if you want to share your contact/calendar data, one way to go about that is to create a free Outlook.com account (which is an Exchange account), copy the contact/calendar data to corresponding folders for the Outlook.com account and when done, just add the Outlook.com account to any other computers/devices.

For the other part of your question...............

Office 365 is merely a subscription version of the Office suite. No different then Office 2010, just the most current version of the desktop apps which is paid for annually (hence - "subscription"). Office 2019 on the other hand is a one-time perpetual license for the Office suite for one-computer.

Purely in terms of licensing the software, getting an Office 365 subscription would be the most economical way to go but in terms of the software - it's installed on the computer just like Office 2010 is.

Many people make the mistake of referring to an Office 365 email account. It's a mistake since Office, in and of itself, does not include an email account outside of the free Outlook.com account associated with the MS Account used to make a purchase. There are different versions of the Office subscription suite which do include an Exchange account but that is a "paid" option or to put it another way, an Office 365 subscription with a hosted Exchange account is more expensive than one without.

Office 365 Home or Personal does not include a hosted Exchange account

Office 365 Business does

https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-office-products?tab=1

Thanks so much for your reply. You cleared up my confusion. I guess I mistakenly expected far too much from Office 365. I was really hoping for a central place for contacts and calendar that I could get from several devices. I thought programs would be offsite and the local computer a slim client.

I am fine with Office 2010. Its Outlook that causes constant problems. I have a POP account from my ISP, a Google IMAP account, and Outlook exchange account- all in Outlook. Adding an android phone recently confused things even more in email! I have great difficulty dealing with outlook files- I just don't understand them and how they work so confusion reigns keeping these 3 accounts working.

Perhaps my best bet would be to find a 3rd party mail program that could coordinate these accounts with a central data base for contacts, and stop fighting Outlook? Do you have an ideas for that?

I have really appreciated your help.