How to combine contacts from 2 accounts

Question

In new Outlook, I have 2 email accounts. I want to the contacts for both of these accounts to be combined, so that both of my emails, can access the email addresses from either account. When I go into "People", I'd like all contacts and categories to be together (not under their separate email addresses. How is this possible please.

Answer 1

Dear Karen Box,

Thank you very much for posting your question on the Microsoft Q&A forum.

From your description, you would like to combine two Microsoft work/school accounts so you can access the same data from both. Unfortunately, Microsoft currently does not support merging two separate work or school accounts into a single unified account or shared contact store.

However, if your main goal is to have both email accounts access the same contacts when composing emails, you can consider storing all contacts in one account and using it as your primary contact list as follows: 

• Choose one account to act as your “main” contact's account.
• Export contacts from the second account
• Switch to your primary account to import the CSV file you exported.

For more details, please visit: Import and export Outlook email, contacts, and calendar - Microsoft Support

Once completed, your primary account will contain all contacts, and both accounts should be able to auto-suggest those email addresses when composing messages.

In the meantime, Microsoft truly values customer feedback. If having a built-in merge capability would benefit your workflow, I encourage you to submit your suggestion through the Feedback Portal: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback. This is the best way to let the product team know your needs and help improve future versions of Outlook. Many enhancements come directly from customer input.

I hope this information helps. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to let me know.

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Answer 2

To combine contacts from two accounts in Outlook, you can use the following steps:

1. Export Contacts: Export the contacts from one account to a CSV file. You can do this by going to the account's contacts, selecting all, and choosing the export option.
2. Import Contacts: Import the CSV file into the other account. Go to the contacts section of the account you want to keep, and use the import function to add the contacts from the CSV file.
3. Merge Categories: If you have categories assigned to your contacts, you may need to manually reassign these categories after importing, as categories may not always transfer correctly during the import process.
4. Access Combined Contacts: Once the import is complete, you should see all contacts from both accounts in the People section of Outlook, allowing you to access them from either email account.

Please note that Outlook does not automatically merge contacts from different accounts into a single view, so manual steps are required to combine them effectively.