Outlook address book, entries are modified

Steve 1 Reputation point
2021-09-22T12:19:11.663+00:00

Hi all experts, have an issue with my company O365 address book. All contacts are sorted "First name, Last name". Every now and then, Outlook modifies my File As list to "First name last name". The comma is removed, and obviously the contacts are now in a wrong position as I get some First names between the Last Names. Just found out that this is for all contacts which I have called in the period since my last manual clean-up. Cell phone model is Huawei P30 Pro, with synced address book. This is the only address book on my cell phone and my computer, ie mix-up from another address book is excluded.
To make it clear, it want my list sorted A-Z: Biden, Obama, Trump. If I call Obama, the list in Outlook will get mixed up, showing Barack first, since Barack Obama comes before Biden Joe.
Please don't contact me for their personal phone numbers, I will not reveal them ;-)
Thanks for your help !

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  1. KyleXu-MSFT 26,211 Reputation points
    2021-09-28T02:24:11.597+00:00

    @Steve

    I also try to change it with VBS, but I find that the “File As” doesn't support the format of “First, Last” (You could change it to "First, Last" manually, but this file cannot be set to this format automatically )

    135698-qa-kyle-10-09-11.png

    If you want to change them to one of the exist and supported format(Such as "Last, First"), you could use a VBS to change them:

    1. Enable the Macro for your Outlook:
      135676-qa-kyle-10-14-16.png
    2. Alt+F11 to open the VBS,
    3. Right click on Project1 and choose Insert > Module
    4. Copy and paste the macro into the new module. The macro is quoted from this article
      Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.
    5. Change the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Contact\FileAsOrder" to the version of your Outlook. (Outlook 365/2016/2019 is 16, Outlook 2013 is 15)
    6. Then run this VBS to choose the format that you want: 135650-1231.gif

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