Outlook Mac cannot fully bind Exchange contacts

Question

Hi there,

I have an annoying issue with Outlook for Mac : it doesn't want to display the names of a contact in the inbox emails headings.

Everything is up to date, MacOS, Outlook, and I'm using the old Outlook. I have an Exchange email account.

When I receive an email from someone, if their email isn't configured properly, the display name isn't very informative - for instance, a lot of companies use emails like ******@company.com, and it would be displayed as "info" in the email heading.

If I add this email as a contact in Outlook to Exchange and put the name I would like to see, for example John Doe, it doesn't change anything to the emails I have already received nor to the emails I receive in the future. Emails don't seem to bind with the Exchange address book and I would still have "info" in headings of received emails.

Weirdly enough, when I want to write a new email and start to type the name of a Exchange contact, it would find it ; to take the same example if I start to write "John" in the To field, Outlook would suggest ******@company.com as email address. I can also look for a contact and find it by its name in the built-in Outlook address book or in the Mac Contact address book, on the Mac and the iPhone.

When using Mail app on MacOS or iOS, it would bind with the Exchange address book and display the correct name, even retroactively.

Any help would be appreciated ; I would go back to Mail if this cannot be fixed.

Thanks

Answer 1

Greetings Gaston Chassagnard,

Hope you are doing Well!

Thank you for getting back to us. Yes, I have gone through your scenario, and I would like to share some information with you. For Outlook for Mac, we have a dedicated team with special expertise in Outlook for Mac queries, so we sincerely recommend you to kindly contact our dedicated Outlook for Mac support channel via Contact support within Outlook for Mac - Microsoft Support. We believe they will give you accurate and efficient solution for your concern.

• To report issues, report bugs or provide feedback, go to Help > Contact Support.

• Enter your Name, Email, issue that you are experiencing and select Send.

And when you get a message from support, you will be notified through the OSX notification center, and a notification message will be displayed on the status bar.

Thank you for your precious time and understanding. For other concerns, please do not hesitate to add your post in the Microsoft Community Team.  

Stay safe and healthy. 

Best regards,

Inema | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 2

Thanks for your answer.

I'm not using the new outlook, the new outlook doesn't work with Exchange account.

Outlook version is 16.71.1 (23031800).

Anyway, I tried to see if it was working with New Outlook and Gmail or Yahoo email address. Issue is the same.

Let's take an example with the New Outlook, a Gmail account and a email from an nearby Apple Store.

I have received an email from the Apple Store, it's in my Gmail inbox in Outlook :

The sender address (odysseum at email.apple.com) is not in my Gmail address book (or any other). I would like to change the "Apple Store" heading because it doesn't suit me.

So I create a contact in Outlook, and give it "TEST" as first name and last name, like this :

This snapshot is taken from Outlook.

This contact is saved in the Gmail address book. After a few minutes, I can check it has synced and appears in my Mac Contact address book, synced with Gmail (with means it went through Gmail server successfully) :

This is from the Mac contact app.

Everything seems to work, except that, in my Outlook Gmail inbox, the name doesn't change. It's not "TEST TEST" but remains Apple Store.

Whereas, if I check in my Mac mail app, change has been made :

I encounter the same issue with the old Outlook, and several Exchange accounts. Everything seems to work, except that Outlook doesn't seem to communicate with the various address books in order to change emails headings.

I hope it's clearer now,

Answer 3

Dear Gaston Chassagnard,

Good day!

Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are glad to assist.

As per your mentioned description about "Outlook Mac cannot fully bind Exchange contacts". To understand the situation and be able to offer you relevant suggestions, we would need a little more information from you. Kindly help us in providing the following information.

• May I confirm that you got same behavior in both new Outlook for Mac and legacy outlook? The new Outlook for Mac - Microsoft Support
• May I please know the outlook version are you using? What version of Outlook do I have? - Microsoft Support
• Would you mind to kindly provide screenshots of your scenario via private message for the privacy of your data? To view private messaging options> click your profile picture at the top on the right > select the My Profile option-->View private messages.

This requested information will help us to narrow down the scenario and find the right troubleshooting.

We are looking forward to your response! Thanks for your precious time. Have a nice day!

Best regards,

Inema | Microsoft Community Moderator