All Outlook contacts suddenly gone

Question

All Outlook contacts suddenly gone

Ken Guappone 20

Suddenly, all my contacts in Outlook are gone. I tried everything suggested. Not in deleted, for example. I had a back up .csv file and imported. Nothing. I exported a .csv file from gmail and imported. Nothing. There were a handful of contacts in deleted, actually, and restored. Nothing. Essentially all of the online help doesn't work. Mostly the menu items suggested don't exist. I pay for Microsoft 365 and this happens. (Have hated the new Outlook, btw, and unable to restore to Classic) Paying for a product and there is no support.

I have lost 500 contacts.

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Answer 1

Chloe-V 7,255 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Ken Guappone,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

I understand how disruptive it is to suddenly lose access to your contacts. You can refer to the steps suggested by Q&A Assist in the thread, and I’m adding a few extra checks below to help narrow this down faster.

1. Check and recover contacts from Outlook on the web

Sign in to Outlook on the web > People
Check All contacts first (to confirm whether the contacts are still in the cloud).
Then check Deleted > select contacts > Restore.
If not found in Deleted: open Deleted and select Recover deleted (Recoverable) > Restore.

2. If you’re importing contacts (CSV), validate the file and import via the supported path

In New Outlook: People > Manage contacts > Import contacts > select your CSV > Import
Before importing, open the CSV in Excel and confirm it contains contact rows (not empty). If the CSV was exported from Gmail, ensure you exported All contacts.
Also ensure the CSV is saved in UTF‑8 encoding for best results.

3. If your contacts were stored locally or you only have a PST backup

New Outlook may not surface “local-only” contacts the same way as classic Outlook. Also, importing from a.pst into New Outlook is currently not supported—you would need to use classic Outlook for PST-based import/restore.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any further updates, thanks.

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.

Chloe-V 7,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-24T08:19:12.2866667+00:00

Hi Ken Guappone,

May I know if you have got any chance to check my answer? I am glad to help if you have any other questions.
Ken Guappone 20 Reputation points

2026-03-24T12:22:29.2233333+00:00

It's the same stuff I have seen everywhere. It was of no help. Did you copy and paste it? i have, of course, already reviewed this long before I post a question. Outlook on the web is of no help. I have imported a .csv file and it doesn't work. I have tried everything. How can 500 contacts just disappea?
Chloe-V 7,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-25T07:09:12.2833333+00:00
Hi Ken Guappone,

I’m really sorry for the frustration this has caused. Losing a large number of contacts is understandably upsetting, especially after you’ve already tried all the common troubleshooting steps.

Since the standard troubleshooting hasn’t resolved the situation and the data is no longer appearing, this case needs to be reviewed directly by Microsoft Support so they can investigate the account and mailbox data in more depth.

Please note that this is a user-to-user support forum. Moderators, contributors including external Microsoft employees cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back-end systems. Our role is limited to providing technical guidance on reported issues, requests, or ideas only.

Please contact Microsoft Support here:

https://support.microsoft.com/contactus

On the support page:

Type Outlook live chat in the search box

Select Get Help, then Contact Support

If you can’t sign in to the affected account, sign in using a different Microsoft account

Under Products & Services, select Other Products, then Outlook

Choose Chat with a support agent via web browser

Explain the situation clearly

Once again, sorry for the inconvenience this has caused, and thank you for your understanding.
Ken Guappone 20 Reputation points

2026-03-25T16:57:56.5033333+00:00

This is totally unacceptable. You have provided no information that is not easily obtained by a simple search and I have already seen that and tried it AND I told you so before you suggested it. Now you suggest Microsoft support (which I thought I was already getting) and the link you provided I have used already several times. I am not sure, but it's probably the way I got here in the first place. And it's pretty clear you are a bot anyway. So essential Microsoft will provide no support for a problem it created and destroyed a great deal of my personal information. I need a real path to follow to get to a solution. None of which you have provided to date.
Hornblower409 7,015 Reputation points

2026-03-26T07:19:42.84+00:00

@Ken Guappone said

I need a real path to follow to get to a solution

Unfortunately there is none at the moment. This is a Microsoft bug. There is nothing you can do from your Outlook Client to fix it. All that any of us can do (myself included) is wait for Microsoft to fix it and goose them along by reporting it using the In-App Help > Send feedback.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5837171/contacts-in-outlook-365

This is an issue from Microsoft's end I am afraid - there are a lot of reports on this issue. Please take a moment to report this. Click Help > Send feedback in the New Outlook and let the Team know, so that they can quickly fix the issue
Chloe-V 7,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-26T07:32:44.3933333+00:00

Hi Ken Guappone,

I’m very sorry for the unexpected experience you’re encountering and fully understand how frustrating this situation can be.

Please follow Hornblower409’s response and submit feedback through the Feedback Hub so the Microsoft team can review and address this.

Once again, sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.
James Hoffman 5 Reputation points

2026-03-26T14:55:33.4366667+00:00

Is there another app that could read the outlook file and possibly restore the contacts?
Hornblower409 7,015 Reputation points

2026-03-26T17:45:47.61+00:00

@James Hoffman said

Is there another app that could read the outlook file and possibly restore the contacts?

If you are hitting the bug described in this Q&A Post:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5837171/contacts-in-outlook-365

Then many people (myself included) are still able to Export our contacts to a CSV file and then Import them back with no errors.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/import-or-export-contacts-in-outlook-using-a-csv-file-bb796340-b58a-46c1-90c7-b549b8f3c5f8

But they still do not appear in the New Outlook for Windows. i.e. The Contacts are there, you just can't see or edit them.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5831169/contact-list-not-displayed-in-new-outlook

We all hope that when Microsoft fixes this bug that all of the existing contacts will still be there, but I would suggest you do a Contacts Export and stash the CSV file someplace safe.
Ken Guappone 20 Reputation points

2026-03-27T14:50:45.9333333+00:00

Nice to hear other comments. Misery loves company. Of course, this must have affected thousands of users. And certainly Microsoft certainly knows all about this, despite, the Microsoft External Staff Moderator's feigned cries of "oh dear". Microsoft simply doesn't care to do anything about this, even though having users lose a mess of data like this is far from a small deal. I guess still using Outlook is quaint. I have not heard the bot say anything about escalating this problem. I hope that others pile on here. Thanks for listening.
Hornblower409 7,015 Reputation points

2026-03-27T17:02:33.1066667+00:00

@Ken Guappone said

And certainly Microsoft certainly knows all about this

Yes. But they have to prioritize what bugs they fix first. (I imagine the list is pretty long).

So everyone who "votes" by doing Help -> Feedback -> Report a problem pushes this bug one notch higher up the scale.
Chloe-V 7,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-29T07:28:47.11+00:00

Hi James Hoffman,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

In this case, you may want to review Hornblower409’s response above for more detailed information.

Thank you for your time and understanding.
Chloe-V 7,255 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-29T07:32:35.3133333+00:00

Hi Ken Guappone,

I understand how disappointing this experience can be. As forum moderators, we appreciate your understanding that our visibility into internal development details is limited. Our focus here is to help guide users to the right resources and support channels, and while deeper backend analysis isn’t something we can see, we’ll continue to support you as best we can within our role.

Thank you for your understanding.

Answer 2

Follow these steps in Outlook on the web/Outlook.com to try to get the missing contacts back and make imported contacts visible:

Check the Deleted and Recoverable folders
1. In the navigation pane, select People.
2. In People, select Deleted.
3. Look for any of the missing contacts. If found, right‑click each and select Restore.
4. If the contacts are not in Deleted, at the top of the list select Recover deleted.
5. Select any contacts found there and choose Restore.
6. Restored contacts go back to their original folder when possible; if that folder no longer exists, they go to the default Contacts folder.
If contacts still do not appear
1. While still in People, make sure the Contacts folder (and any other contact folders) is selected/visible in the left pane.
2. Refresh the page. If nothing appears in People → Contacts, also check Mail → Deleted Items for any contact items and restore them from there.
Validate the CSV files used for import
1. Locate the backup .csv file and the Gmail‑exported .csv file.
2. Open each .csv file in Excel.
3. Confirm that rows of contact data are present (names, email addresses, etc.). If a file is empty, the export did not work and must be repeated from the source.
4. When closing the file in Excel, always choose Yes when prompted to keep the CSV format; otherwise the file may become unusable for import.
5. After confirming the CSV contains data, repeat the import into Outlook and then check People → Contacts again.

If the contacts are not in Deleted or Recoverable, and the CSV files either have no data or re‑importing still shows nothing in People → Contacts, the missing contacts are not recoverable through the available Outlook recovery and import mechanisms and would need to be restored from another backup (such as an older PST/backup of the mailbox, if available).

References:

James Hoffman 5 Reputation points

2026-03-27T17:39:53.8233333+00:00

I had stated this before but it didn't show up.

Export you contacts (they don't show up) into a CSV file. Use the CSV file until microsoft acts on this issue. This worked for me. Worth a shot.
Hornblower409 7,015 Reputation points

2026-03-27T17:53:31.9533333+00:00

To expand on the suggestion from @James Hoffman to Export your Contacts from New Outlook for Windows as a backup, even if you can't see them, see the Answer by "Hornblower409 Mar 27, 2026, 11:30 AM" at
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5818600/all-my-contacts-are-missing-with-the-new-outlook-h

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All Outlook contacts suddenly gone

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