CONTACTS ISSUES IN OUTLOOK

Question

As of 0800hrs this morning. When I create a new email and click in recipients. None of my contacts or contact lists appear. All my contacts are in People. Just not when creating new emails!

Answer 1

Do your symptoms match the problem described in this post?

Answer by "Hornblower409 May 9, 2026" in
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5885577/microsoft-has-been-roaming-around-in-my-win-11-pc

If so, it's a known bug. I and other users have been seeing this problem on-and-off over the last few weeks. Outlook Web and New Outlook for windows. It just seems to come and go at random. Nothing official from Microsoft (that I have seen). Nothing you can do to fix it from your end.

Answer 2

Hello ALAN

I understand your contacts appear correctly in People, but they don’t show up when selecting recipients while composing a new email.

Before suggesting fixes, I’d like to confirm a couple of things so we don’t miss the root cause:

1. When you click in the “To” / “CC” field, do you see any suggestions at all, or is it completely empty?
2. If you start typing a contact’s name or email address, does it resolve (auto-complete), or still nothing appears?
3. Does this happen on one browser only, or have you tested another browser (e.g., Edge vs Chrome)?
4. Are your contacts saved as individual contacts only, or also in contact lists/groups?

In the meantime, please try the following:

1, Rule out browser/session issue

Open Outlook web in an InPrivate/Incognito window, then sign in and try composing a new email.

• If contacts appear normally there, this points to a cached session or browser extension conflict
• In that case, return to your normal browser and clear cache for Outlook or temporarily disable extensions

2, Rebuild contact resolution

If nothing appears when typing:

• In a new email, manually enter the full email address of a contact from People
• Send a test email
• Start another new email and type the same name again

This forces Outlook Web to re-index that contact for recipient suggestions

3, Check contact storage location (common cause)

Outlook Web primarily surfaces contacts from the default “Contacts” folder

• Go to People
• Open one affected contact > check if it belongs to the main Contacts folder
• If it’s inside a separate list/group only, try adding that contact directly to the main Contacts folder

Please feel free to let me know how it goes. Thank you for your time and understanding.

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