Outlook 365 - list of contacts is gone

Question

I have two identical HP laptops with identical software and hardware. Both are under one subscription for MS Office 365. This, since August 2025. Two days ago, out of the blue, all of my contacts simply vanished. All 270 of them. On both machines. I have tried to use the FEEDBACK report a problem and the outlook HELP Support, but both are useless. To be honest no matter what problem I report no one has ever resolved an issue (some had to do with the calendar events). Anyway I am desperate to find out why my contacts disappeared and if I can somehow retrieve them. I have rebooted, open and closed Outlook, changed to OFF for offline under Mail Settings and no luck....and then switched back to ON for offline per one MS support person's guess. Didn't work either.

Why does MS office 365 have so many problems, yet is not new and further, galling as it demands an annual subscription.

Can someone reach out and actually come up with a solution. I dread having to rebuild that many contacts. ON that note I did try to create even one new contact to see what happens. Guess what....after saving it, the contact disappeared. It doesn't appear under PEOPLE/Contacts in Outlook 365.

And finally I did switch and/or launch Outlook Classic app....the contacts were not there either!

Answer 1

I did all the obvious things about looking at PEOPLE and deleted. There is zero in PEOPLE. Nothing. No list. NO deleted, no buttons to do anything other than VIEW option in Modern Outlook 365. I had to go back and forth with MS Support using Outlook, Support and sending messages and screen shots. As usual the front line offered much the same solutions as you did. But I kept complaining as this was a total waste of time until finally the person I was in contact with in MS support went to 'her team' at my strong suggestion and she learned that indeed MS admits this is a known problem and they have a fix but they are testing it. I asked if my contacts would be recovered along with the lost ability to simply forward a Vcard to another user. And I was promised that yes both would happen. I have little faith. And the MS support person would not say just when the FIX would be loaded. "Since, we have no final date on the availability of the fix, I can't really say if the issue will be fixed within a specific number of days, or if it would take longer. Once the issue is fixed, you should be able to view your contacts again. The fix will be applied via automatic product build update. So manual intervention is not required. You may connect with us for information on the fix." I also asked for compensation as these two issues are just two of so many problems I have had with Outlook 365 New. It is beyond ridiculous to pay for a product offering/app that doesn't work! If only I had and MS supported, Office Pro 2010

Answer 2

Based on the described behavior (all contacts gone on both machines, new contacts not persisting, and Classic Outlook also not showing them), the most likely causes in the provided material are:

1. Outlook is pointing to an empty or wrong Contacts folder.
2. Contacts were deleted and need to be restored from Deleted Items/Recoverable Items.

Use these checks and recovery steps.

1. Check for a second Contacts folder

• In Outlook desktop, go to the People view.
• Look carefully in the folder list for more than one folder named Contacts (or a localized equivalent).
  • One folder may show a standard folder icon.
  • Another may show a contact card icon.
• If contacts are visible in the folder that has the folder icon (not the contact card icon), drag all contacts from that folder into the Contacts folder that has the contact card icon. That contact-card folder is the one Outlook and other apps use.

This scenario can occur after migration or changes on the Exchange side, where Exchange invalidates the original Contacts folder and creates a new one; the old folder still holds the items but is no longer the active Contacts folder.

2. Restore deleted contacts (if they were removed) If no alternate Contacts folder contains the items, treat them as deleted and attempt recovery.

New Outlook / Outlook on the web / Outlook.com:

1. Go to People.
2. In the left navigation, select Deleted.
3. Look for the missing contacts or contact lists.
4. Right-click each contact and choose Restore.
   • Restored contacts return to the main Contacts list.

If the contacts are not in the Deleted folder, use the Recover Deleted Items option (where available in your mailbox type) to restore items that were hard-deleted from Contacts.

3. If contacts still do not appear in People view There was a known issue where People view could not display contacts correctly in some Outlook desktop builds. This has been fixed by a service change, but if People view still does not show contacts:
4. Close Outlook.
5. Start Outlook in Safe Mode by holding Ctrl while launching Outlook and confirming Safe Mode.
6. Once Outlook fully opens in Safe Mode, close it.
7. Open Outlook again in normal mode and check People view.

This forces Outlook to refresh service settings that control how contacts are displayed.

If none of the above surfaces the contacts (no second Contacts folder, nothing in Deleted, and Safe Mode refresh does not help), recovery would require a backup or an older Outlook data file (PST) from before the disappearance, which is outside the provided material.

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References:

• Contacts folder empty and contacts are in a different folder in Outlook for Microsoft 365
• Restore or recover a deleted contact in Outlook
• Outlook cannot display contacts in People View