Contact information does not appear in the address book in Outlook

When you use your address book to select recipients for an e-mail message or a fax message in Microsoft Outlook, information from your Contacts folder does not appear in the list.

This behavior occurs because Outlook requires that you complete the following steps before your contact information is available for you to address messages by using your address book:

• Install the Outlook Address Book service.
• Mark your contact folder for use with your address book.
• Specify either an e-mail address or a fax number for each item that you want to appear when you address messages.

To resolve this issue, follow these steps.

Step 1: Install the Outlook Address Book service

To do this, follow these steps, as appropriate for the version of Outlook that you are running.

Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.
2. Click to select View or change existing directories or address books, and then click Next.
3. If your Outlook Address Book is listed, click Cancel, and then go to the steps in the "How to Mark Your Contact Folder for Use with Your Address Book" section.
4. If your Outlook Address Book is not listed, click Add.
5. Click to select Additional Address Books, and then click Next.
6. Click to select Outlook Address Book, and then click Next.
7. Click OK when you receive the prompt that the address book you added will not start until you click Exit from the File menu.
8. Click Finish.
9. Click Exit from the File menu, and then restart Outlook.

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

1. On the Tools menu, click Accout Settings .
2. Click the Adress Books tab.
3. If your Outlook Address Book is listed, click Close, and then go to "Step 2: Mark your contact folder for use with your address book."
   
   If your Outlook Address Book is not listed, click New.
4. Select Additional Address Books, and then click Next.
5. Select Outlook Address Book, and then click Next.
6. You receive a message that states that the address book that you added will not start until you click Exit on the File menu. Click OK.
7. Click Finish.
8. Click Close, and then restart Outlook.

Step 2: Mark your contact folder for use with your address book

1. On the File menu, point to Folder, and then click Properties for your folder name.
2. On the Outlook Address Book tab, click to select the Show this folder as an e-mail address book check box, type a descriptive name, and then click OK.

Step 3: Look for an e-mail address or a fax number

1. In the Folder list, select the Contact folder.
2. Double-click the contact to open the item, and then look at the e-mail address field and the fax numbers field.

If there is no e-mail address or fax number, Outlook does not display this contact in your address book when you try to address an e-mail message or a fax message.

Outlook allows any contact folder to be used by the address book, not just the primary Contacts folder. For example, if you create a new folder of contacts called "Friends" (without the quotation marks), you can specify that the contacts in the Friends folder also appear in your address book. To do this, follow the steps that are described in the "Resolution" section.

The Contact folders appear in your address book as subcategories of an entry that is called Outlook Address Book. If you click Outlook Address Book instead of clicking one of the folder names, you do not see any contact information. To see the contact information, you must click the specific folder name that contains the contact.