Contacts in Outlook 365

Question

As of two days ago, I can no longer access my contacts. I can't even add one contact. I get a message that "this doesn't look right" with a plug icon and it says try again, which doesn't work. I am not sure what happened, but I lost alot of contacts. And, it is weird that I can't enter one. I cleared cache. Help! Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Kim,

This is an issue from Microsoft's end I am afraid - there are a lot of reports on this issue. Example:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5828243/outlook-contacts-are-not-visible

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.

I hope this information helps. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

Otherwise, please take a moment to rate the answer. Wishing you good luck!

Answer 2

The described behavior is consistent with a service-side issue affecting contacts in Outlook that has been seen in other scenarios. The recommended actions are:

1. Check whether this is a transient service problem
   • Similar contact issues have been resolved by backend fixes without local changes. If the problem started suddenly two days ago and standard troubleshooting (like clearing cache) did not help, it may clear on its own after the service is corrected.
2. Force Outlook to refresh service settings
   • Close Outlook.
   • Start Outlook while holding down the Ctrl key.
   • Keep Ctrl pressed until the Safe Mode prompt appears, then confirm to open in Safe Mode.
   • After Outlook fully opens in Safe Mode, close it.
   • Start Outlook again normally and test contacts (viewing and adding).
3. If the issue persists, use Outlook on the web as a temporary workaround
   • Similar contact-editing issues in classic Outlook can be worked around by using Outlook on the web to access and edit contacts while the desktop issue is being investigated or fixed service-side.
4. If contacts were synced from an online account, verify they still exist in the source
   • For example, if using a Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com account, sign in via a browser and check whether contacts are present there. If they are, they should resync once the desktop issue is resolved.

If none of the above helps and the problem continues for more than a short period, opening a support request with Microsoft 365 Support is recommended so engineering can check for a tenant- or account-specific backend issue.

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References:

• Outlook cannot display contacts in People View
• Classic Outlook Contacts that have an X509 S/MIME certificate added to the Global Address List can no longer be edited with Operation Failed error
• Error when trying to create or edit contacts in Outlook: You don't have permission to create an entry in this folder
• Unable to edit Contacts, Appointments, Meetings, or Tasks within Outlook