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5 min fix Updated 8 Aug 2026Beginner

By , IT support technician

Quick Answer

Click People in the app bar, then New contact on the Home tab. To save someone who has already emailed you, click their name in the message header and choose Add to contacts on the profile card.

How to Add and Manage Contacts in Outlook ​

Applies to: Microsoft Outlook (new Outlook, classic Outlook, Outlook on the web), Microsoft 365
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-08-08

Summary ​

Outlook shows you two address books that look almost identical: the contacts you save yourself, and the company directory your IT department maintains. Knowing which one you are looking at answers most contact questions before they start. This guide covers adding someone from an email you already have, creating a contact from scratch, editing the fields worth filling in, organising with favourites and categories, and deleting a contact cleanly — including why the name keeps suggesting itself afterwards.

Before You Start ​

  • Work out which Outlook you are running. New Outlook and Outlook on the web call this area People. Classic Outlook labels the same icon People on current builds and Contacts on older ones — both open the same list. Every step below names both paths.
  • No admin rights are needed for anything in this guide.
  • Contacts you save live in your mailbox, so the same list turns up in Outlook on your phone and in a browser.

Instructions ​

1. Open Your Contacts in Your Version of Outlook ​

Every step below starts from the same screen, and the way in differs by version.

  1. In new Outlook or Outlook on the web, click People in the vertical app bar down the far-left edge of the window. The window switches to the contacts view: your list of people on the left, the selected person's details on the right.
  2. In classic Outlook, click People in the navigation bar at the bottom-left of the window. Older builds label the same icon Contacts.
  3. If the icon is not where you expect it in classic Outlook, press Ctrl + 3. Outlook switches straight to People regardless of where the navigation bar has been moved.

2. Add a Contact from an Email You Already Have ​

Most contacts start life as a message in your inbox, and adding one from there copies the name and address across without any typing.

  1. Open the message in the reading pane and click the sender's name in the header at the top of the message. A profile card opens on top of the message.
  2. In new Outlook, click More options — the three dots on the card — then click Add to contacts.
  3. In Outlook on the web, click Add to contacts at the bottom of the card.
  4. In classic Outlook, click View more options for interacting with this person on the card, then click Add to Outlook Contacts.
  5. A contact form opens with the name and email address already filled in. Add anything else you want to keep — a phone number, the company name — and click Save (Save & Close in classic Outlook). The form closes and the person is now in your People list.

3. Create a Contact from Scratch ​

When there is no email to work from — a business card, a number read out on a call — you type the entry yourself.

  1. Open People using Step 1.
  2. On the Home tab, click New contact. A blank contact form opens.
  3. Fill in the name and email fields. First name, Last name and the email address are the only ones that affect how Outlook finds and files the person; everything else is for your own reference.
  4. Click Save, or Save & Close in classic Outlook. The form closes and the new name appears in the list, filed alphabetically.

Adding a large batch of people at once is a different job — a spreadsheet import handles it in one pass, and How to Import and Export Contacts in Outlook walks through the file format.

4. Edit a Contact and Fill In the Fields Worth Having ​

Opening a saved contact shows every field Outlook holds for that person, and a handful of them do nearly all the work.

  1. In People, double-click the contact you want to change. The full contact opens.
  2. In new Outlook and Outlook on the web, click Edit contact to make the fields editable. In classic Outlook the contact opens ready to edit.
  3. Change what you need. The fields that earn their keep are the email address, the mobile number, Company, and the free-text notes area at the foot of the form — that last one is where "prefers Teams over email" or "covers the Dublin office" belongs, and it is searchable.
  4. Click Save (Save & Close in classic Outlook). The form closes and the contact list shows the updated details.

5. Tell Your Contacts Apart from the Company Directory ​

Outlook searches two lists of people, and only one of them is yours to change.

  1. Look at the left pane in People. Everything under Your contacts — Contacts in classic Outlook — is yours: you can add, edit, and delete any of it.
  2. Now search for a colleague you have never emailed. They appear anyway, because Outlook is also searching your organisation's directory — the global address list. IT builds it from the company's account records, and it is read-only for everyone else.
  3. Open that colleague's profile card. There is no way to correct their job title or desk number from here, and that is by design: the values come from a record you do not own.
  4. When a directory entry is wrong, send IT this: "Please correct the directory entry for [name]. The [field] currently shows [wrong value] and should be [correct value]. This is the entry that appears in Outlook's address book, not my personal contacts." Naming the field and both values gets it changed in one round trip.
  5. If you need to hold different details for a colleague — a personal mobile, a note about their working hours — use Add to contacts from Step 2 to make your own copy. Your copy sits alongside the directory entry, and nobody else sees it.

6. Organise Contacts with Favourites and Categories ​

Two organising tools cover the two questions people actually ask of a contact list: who do I email constantly, and who belongs to this project.

  1. Right-click a contact and click Add to favorites. The name appears under Favorites in the left pane, at the top of the list.
  2. To take one back out, right-click it and click Remove from favorites. This changes where the name is displayed and nothing else — the contact itself stays exactly where it was.
  3. To tag a contact by project or client, right-click it and click Categorize, then pick a colour category, or New category to create one with a name that means something. In classic Outlook, right-click and click Categorize, then choose a colour or All Categories.
  4. The category shows as a coloured label next to the name in the list. Category names are shared across your mail, calendar and contacts, so a Q4 Migration category tags meetings and messages the same way.
  5. To take a category off, right-click and click Clear All Categories. This removes the label only — the contact and everything in it stay put.

Grouping people so you can email them all at once is a separate feature with its own entry in the People list — see How to Create a Contact Group (Distribution List) in Outlook.

7. Delete a Contact and Clear the Suggestion It Leaves Behind ​

Deleting a contact removes your saved copy, and it deliberately leaves two other things alone — which is where nearly all the confusion lives.

  1. In People, select the contact and click Delete on the ribbon, or right-click it and click Delete. Click Delete again to confirm. This removes your own saved entry and nothing else: the person's directory listing, your email history with them, and any contact group they belong to are untouched, and the deleted contact lands in Deleted Items where you can drag it back out.
  2. Start a New email and type the first few letters of that person's name in the To field. If their address still appears in the dropdown, you are looking at AutoComplete — a cache of addresses you have sent to before, entirely separate from your contacts. That is why deleting the contact changed nothing here.
  3. Hover over the wrong suggestion in the dropdown and click the X at its right-hand edge. The entry drops out of the list. Removing it costs nothing — Outlook rebuilds this cache from the messages you send, so the correct address comes back on its own the next time you use it. How to Fix Outlook AutoComplete Not Working or Suggesting Wrong Emails covers the rest of that list, including how to clear it wholesale.
  4. If the name still turns up when you search the address book, that is the organisation's directory from Step 5. Deleting your own contact never touches it, and it is not yours to remove.

Troubleshooting ​

INFO

Contacts you save go into your mailbox, which is why the same list appears in Outlook on your phone and in a browser. A contact that has not shown up on your other devices yet is still syncing — give it a few minutes before treating it as a fault.

Symptom / ErrorPotential CauseSolution
No New contact button on the Home tabYou are still in Mail, not PeopleClick People in the app bar or navigation bar first (Step 1). The ribbon changes to the contacts commands.
A colleague's job title or phone number is wrong and there is no way to edit itThe entry comes from the organisation's directory, not your contactsDirectory entries are read-only for everyone outside IT. Ask IT to correct it using the wording in Step 5, and include the field name and the correct value.
A deleted contact still appears as you type an addressAutoComplete cache, which is not your contact listHover over the suggestion and click the X beside it (Step 3 above).
Contacts are missing after moving to a new computerThe old contacts were held in a local Outlook data file rather than the mailboxOpen the old profile and export them to a .csv file, then import that file — see How to Import and Export Contacts in Outlook.
Contacts appear on the desktop but not on your phoneThe contacts folder has not finished syncing, or the account on the phone is a different oneConfirm the phone is signed in to the same work account, then work through How to Fix Outlook Calendar, Contacts, or Cross-Device Sync Issues.
Add to contacts is missing from the profile cardThe card is showing a directory entry that is already linked to a saved contactSearch People for the name. Outlook links a new contact to the matching directory entry, so the option disappears once your copy exists.