Is there a way to add all your email contacts to auto in outlook classic?

Question

Is there a way to add all your email contacts to auto in outlook classic without having to send an email to that person - one at a time?

Answer 1

FYI - a trick I found to work is below:

If I Open a new email.

• Select To….
• Then choose ALL my contacts in my Address Book.
• Then delete this "To Email" without saving it - then ALL my contacts are populated in my auto complete list :)

Answer 2

Hi Dan McDermott,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum. 

I understand what you’re trying to do. In classic Outlook, the Auto-Complete list is not the same as your Contacts folder, so Outlook does not provide a button to load every saved contact into Auto-Complete at once.

Auto-Complete is mainly built from addresses you have previously used when sending email. However, you can still access your saved contacts without typing each address manually:

• Open a new email.
• Select To….
• Choose your Contacts or Address Book.
• Select the recipients you want to add.

If you often email the same group of people, you may also want to create a Contact Group in classic Outlook. That way, you can add the group to an email instead of entering each contact individually.

So, while you can use your contacts from the Address Book, there is no built-in way in classic Outlook to automatically add all contacts into the Auto-Complete list in one step.

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Answer 3

In classic Outlook, there is no supported way to bulk-add all existing contacts to the Auto-Complete/Contact Suggestions list without sending messages to them. The Contact Suggestions list is populated automatically over time from:

• Personal contacts
• Contacts from the organization’s directory
• Names and addresses previously used when sending messages

As messages are sent to recipients, Outlook adds them to the Auto-Complete/Contact Suggestions list. There is no built-in feature in classic Outlook to pre-load or force all contacts into that list in one step.

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References:

• Manage suggested recipients in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields in Outlook
• Add, find, edit, or delete a contact in Outlook
• Create, view, and edit contacts and contact lists in Outlook