Share via

Reappearing email address in Outlook Contact List

Dale Quattrin 20 Reputation points
2025-09-18T11:36:07.3866667+00:00

I am using the web-based Office 365. I created a contact list of students in my class. One of the email addresses has been deleted from the organization's system. However, when I try to delete it from my contact list, it immediately reappears. I realize I can delete the whole list and recreate it. However, is there a way to just delete that email address and keep it deleted?

Outlook | Web | Outlook on the web for business | Contacts
0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous
2025-09-18T13:32:11.68+00:00

Hi @Dale Quattrin,

Good day and thank you for posting in Microsoft Q&A Forum.

I've tested the scenario based on your description, and I encountered the same behavior. It seems this behavior may be related to a system sync. However, when I tried deleting contacts that were still active in the tenant, the feature worked as expected.

Since your goal is to delete only that specific account without removing the entire contact list, I recommend reaching out to your organization's Global Admin (the person who manages all user accounts). Ask them to restore the deleted user and reassign the necessary licenses to enable Exchange features for that mailbox.

Once the user is successfully restored, you can try deleting them from your contact list again. After the deletion is successful, the admin can delete the user once more. I’ve tested this method, and although it’s a bit inconvenient, but based on my research, it appears to be the most effective solution for your case.

If you’re unsure who the Global Admin is within your organization, you can find guidance on locating them here: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support.

Additionally, thank you for sharing your concern with Microsoft product feature, maybe this behavior hasn’t been officially recognized or confirmed yet. I also recommend your admin report in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

User's image

Furthermore, you can share your feedback directly in Outlook or on the Microsoft Feedback Portal and share your feedback link here so others experiencing the same issue can help amplify it. Since others are researching this issue in the forum, you can mark this reply as the accepted answer, this will help others in the same situation find the information and the appropriate channels to report the issue.

User's image

As forum moderators, we’re not directly involved in product design decisions, but we want to assure you that your feedback is heard and highly appreciated. This is the most direct way to influence future features, and our engineers regularly review user input.

I hope this helps. If you have any further update, please don't hesitate to let me know.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

User's image

Was this answer helpful?

2 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Paul S 5 Reputation points
    2025-09-23T11:58:28.5+00:00

    For 20 years or more, the outlook web contact or people list management has been buggy. Contact lists periodically disappear. Someone sends you their new email address and you try to overwrite their old one - good luck with that! Even if you remove the old one from the suggestions, clear cache etc, it will reappear and you will discover you have sent an email that's never received or, if you are lucky, bounces back. The changed or deleted email address will not be changed in any contact lists - 40 years ago we understood the concept of referential integrity in databases, but Microsoft contact management doesn't!

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  2. Dale Quattrin 20 Reputation points
    2025-09-22T12:25:24.0266667+00:00

    Mia,

    Thank you for the follow-up. I forwarded your suggestions to our IT people. They told me to recreate the list. Evidently, they did not want to turn the email back on and then off again. They said that they submitted the issue to the Outlook forum. So, that is far as this thread needs to go.

    Thank you.

    Was this answer helpful?

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.