Address books in Outlook

We get contacted all the time about the topic of addressing email using Outlook.

Outlook, depending on how it’s used, has several different methods of addressing emails:

1. Typing in an email manually.
2. Using automatic fill in of previously-entered email addresses from the Nickname File (pre-Outlook 2010) or Suggested Contacts (Outlook 2010).
3. Using automatic fill in from Contacts.
4. Using the To... or Cc... buttons.

This article addresses the 4th of these. We’ll address the other three later.

If your contacts are in your Outlook Contacts folder, as they should be, you can use the To... button or Cc... buttons when sending an email to view and select addressees from your Contacts folders. By default, if you are using Outlook as an internet email client, the Outlook Contacts folder will be what’s shown when you select the menu or toolbar button to view address books. If, on the other hand, you use Outlook with a hosted Exchange account (an option chosen by many Interconnected Technologies clients because of the additional capabilities available through doing so), by default you will see the Global Address List (the list of all addresses in your company who also use Exchange) as your first choice for selecting email addresses, and have to use the pulldown menu to select your own Outlook Contacts folder.

Most non-corporate users of this configuration would prefer that their Outlook Contacts folder be the first choice.

This can be changed as follows:

1. Open the address book (in Outlook 2010, this is done by selecting the Address Book button on the Home Ribbon Bar).

2.  Select Tools, and then Options, and you will see the following:

3. In this windows you can specify which Contacts folder is selected by default when choosing email addresses.

Choose the behavior you wish, and enjoy!