The New People Directory Search Experience in Outlook: Smarter, Faster, and More Connected Than Ever
Managing contacts has always been central to how we work - but the way we work has changed dramatically. Today, we're excited to unveil a completely reimagined People experience in Outlook that makes finding, organizing, and connecting with your contacts faster and smarter than ever before. Whether you're reaching out to a colleague across the globe or managing your most important business relationships, the new People in Outlook is designed to get you there in seconds, not minutes. Instant People Directory Search: Find Anyone in Seconds We’ve heard you loud and clear: navigating complex organizational trees and deeply nested directory hierarchies to find a single contact takes too long. So we built something better. The new People in Outlook features a powerful, intelligent search experience that puts every contact at your fingertips - instantly. Simply start typing a name, location, job title, department, or even a personal note you’ve added, and People in Outlook surfaces the right person immediately. No more drilling through layers of org charts or scrolling through alphabetical lists. Just type, find, and connect. Here’s what makes it work: Lightning-fast keyword search - Search across names, email addresses, job titles, locations, departments, and even your own notes and tags. A few keystrokes is all it takes. Smart suggestions - As you type, People in Outlook intelligently surfaces the most relevant matches based on your communication patterns and organizational context. One search, every contact source - Whether the person is in your organization’s directory, your personal contacts, or a linked account, search brings them all together in one unified result set. Instant action - Once you find who you’re looking for, you can email, call, or start a Teams chat directly from the search results - no extra clicks required. This is contact discovery reimagined. What once required navigating through hierarchical trees and multiple clicks now happens in a single, fluid interaction. It’s the fastest way to find and connect with anyone in your world. A Modern, Unified Contact Management Experience Beyond these major innovations, the new People in Outlook brings a complete refresh to how you manage your contacts every day: Modern multi-column table view - See all your contacts at a glance with a clean, customizable table layout. Sort, filter, and scan your contacts faster than ever. Quick actions at your fingertips - Email, call, or chat with any contact directly from the contact list. No need to open a contact card first. Multi-select and bulk operations - Need to categorize, email, or manage multiple contacts at once? Select them all and take action in a single step. Categories for flexible organization - Organize your contacts with color-coded categories that work across Outlook. Tag contacts as “Key Clients,” “Project Team,” “Vendors,” or anything that fits your workflow. Import and export - Easily bring contacts in from CSV files or export your contact data whenever you need it. Consistent experience everywhere - Whether you’re using Outlook on the desktop, Outlook on the web, or Teams, the People experience is the same - modern, fast, and reliable. Built for Performance and Reliability The new People in Outlook was built from the ground up with performance at its core. After extensive testing and feedback from thousands of users within Microsoft, we’ve delivered an experience that is not only feature-rich but also fast, stable, and reliable - even with large contact lists. Every interaction is designed to feel instant and responsive. Get Started Today The new People experience is currently available on the New Outlook for Desktop, and is rolling out now for Outlook on the web for all Microsoft 365 users. To explore it: Open Outlook and click the People icon on the left navigation rail. Start searching for anyone - by name, title, location, or any keyword. Explore your contacts in the new table view and try out quick actions. We’re incredibly excited about what the new People in Outlook means for how you connect and collaborate. This is just the beginning - we have even more innovations in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share with you. We’d love to hear from you! Share your feedback directly within Outlook by selecting Help > Feedback, or join the conversation in the Microsoft Tech Community. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The People in Outlook team is committed to building the best contact management experience in the world - and we’re just getting started.
New Outlook: Shadow contacts not stored in Outlook.com, no sync/export and missing Birthday calendar
I’m reporting a reproducible data‑integrity issue in the New Outlook for Windows that affects Outlook.com contact storage and synchronization. 🔍 Summary When a contact is created in the New Outlook, the client appears to save it successfully. However, the resulting contact is not stored in the user’s Outlook.com account as a normal cloud contact. Instead, it becomes what I would describe as a local “shadow contact” in the New Outlook cache. ⚠️ Observable Behavior • The contact appears in Outlook.com → People, but does not show “Stored in: Outlook” • The contact does not appear in Outlook.com CSV exports • The contact does not sync to mobile devices connected to the same account • The contact does not populate the Outlook.com Birthday calendar • The contact is lost if the New Outlook app is reinstalled or its local store is cleared 🧪 Steps to Reproduce 1. Open the New Outlook for Windows 2. Create a new contact and add a birthday 3. Save the contact 4. Open Outlook.com → People 5. Locate the contact — it will appear, but the “Stored in: Outlook” field is missing 6. Export contacts from Outlook.com (CSV) — the contact will not be present 7. Check a mobile device configured with the same Microsoft account — the contact will not be present 8. Check the Outlook.com Birthday calendar — the birthday will not appear 9. Reinstall the New Outlook app — the contact will be gone ✅ Expected Behavior • Contacts created in the New Outlook should be stored as first‑class Outlook.com contacts • They should appear with a proper “Stored in: Outlook” location • They should sync across devices, export via Outlook.com, and populate the Birthday calendar ❌ Actual Behavior • Contacts created in the New Outlook are effectively “shadow contacts” stored in a local cache • They look normal in the New Outlook UI, but they are incomplete, non‑synchronizing objects from the service’s perspective 📉 Impact • Silent data loss risk for users who assume contacts are in Outlook.com when they are not • Inconsistent contact and birthday data across devices and services • Split contact store model: • Real Outlook.com contacts • Local shadow contacts created by New Outlook 📎 What I’ve Already Done • Submitted feedback through the New Outlook (Help → Feedback → Report a Problem) • Submitted a detailed report via the Windows Feedback Hub • Contacted Microsoft Support, who advised that escalation must occur via Feedback 📣 Request I’m posting this here to document the issue publicly and to ask: • Can anyone from the Outlook / Exchange / Outlook.com team confirm this behavior? • Can other users reproduce this with the steps above? Given the data‑integrity implications, I’m hoping this can be brought to the attention of the relevant engineering team. Any confirmation, additional data points, or official guidance would be appreciated.
Add shared mailbox contacts to the new outlook for windows
In my organization, we use a shared mailbox to share a public address book. Is there a way to add it to the new Outlook for Windows? I can see the shared mailbox correctly under ‘Mail -> Shared with Me’, but there’s nothing about shared mailboxes in the ‘People’ tab. I have also tried to manually add the shared mailbox as a standalone account, but it just loads indefinitely after I type in the address Outlook client version: 20231006004.16 Windows 11, build 22621.2428🤬 All My Contacts Imported to My Partners Account
My partner restarted her Teams tonight. On restarting, every single one of my contacts had appeared in her contact list. Is this a bug, or have they introduced automatic contact sharing. She can't see any previous messages, but obviously a massive security breach sharing contact lists between accounts without permission.Contact sync between Outlook for iOS and native iOS contact app
Edit: I would like to continue this topic here: 🙂 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-intune/ios-managed-contacts-how-to-deal-with-that/m-p/1473555#M4572 Hi folks, i'm struggling with the sync between outlook for ios and the native contact app. What I've done so far: Created an app protection policy for managed devices, where contactsync is allowed Created an app protection policy for unmanaged devices, where contactsync isn't allowed. This is working as expected. When the device is enrolled in intune it's processing the managed policy and is able to activate the contact sync. Well, what bothers is me is the fact that 3rd party apps like whatsapp are able to see these work contacts. I already read throught this article: Support Tip: Enabling Outlook iOS Contact Sync with iOS12 MDM Controls I tried to add the following to my app configuration for outlook, but it isn't working: (mentioned here: docs.ms ) com.microsoft.outlook.ContactSync.AddressAllowed > false com.microsoft.outlook.ContactSync.BirthdayAllowed > false When synchronising some test contacts they still contain adress & birthdate. Any help understanding this problem is highly appreciated. Kind regards, PatrickNew Outlook, can I access my contacts from more than one email account?
Is there any way I can access my extensive list of contacts from more than one email address/account? Currently they are all listed under my default email address account, but I sometimes need to send to people from those contacts using a different email account. Grateful for any help. Thank you.
How do I modify an organization contact only for myself?
I want to associate a nickname with a person in my organization, whose employee records live in Entra ID. To do this, I went into Outlook desktop (1.2024.1204.300), did a search for the person, and selected "Add to contacts". From there, I modified the newly created contact record's first name from, for example, "Margaret" to "Margaret (Peggy)". I also deleted the company and title fields that got auto-populated because I don't want to overwrite these values from whatever they might change to in the future. The only fields I should need are email address (which I expect it needs as the "key" to match my contact record to the person's underlying record in the organization) and the fields I want to overwrite, in this case first name. From here, I'd expect interactions with this user to show their updated name for me. It doesn't. Nothing works as expected. If I start a new email and type "peggy" into the "To" field, nothing comes up. If I type "margaret", she appears in the results without my name modification. Similarly, while in the Mail section of Outlook, if I do a search for "peggy", I get no results, even if I filter on People. However, in the People section of Outlook, if I do a search for "peggy", she does come up. So even within Outlook itself, there's a total disconnect between how Mail and People honor my contacts info. In Teams desktop (24295.605.3225.8804.), it's even worse, with there being no trace whatsoever of the contact's updated name. In the People section, "All contacts" shows nothing at all. I've manually clicked Mail > View > Sync in Outlook. I've tried manually closing both Outlook and Teams. I've waited 30 minutes. I've even confirmed via outlook.office.com that my contact is there and that the "new contacts" settings is on, but actually seeing the updated name when writing an email or sending a Teams chat isn't working at all. None of these time-consuming and frustrating steps should be necessary to begin with, but even then, it's all broken. Is this not a supported feature in M365?Outlook for iOS + Caller Identification
Hey folks, i'm struggling at this for years, as you can see in my previus post from 2020. Let me shorten this: Scenario We have iOS Devices with Outlook for iOS installed. The users have many contacts in their EXO Mailboxes When a user gets a call from one of his contacts, the phone number is presented instead of the name (no Caller identification) Approaches I already know this MS articles belonging to Contact Sync. So i've learned that this leads to a running contact sync without the need of an icloud Account. The contacts could be written directly between Outlook for iOS and the native contacts app. (Better than nothing ) The Problem is, that if contact sync is in use ANY App could see these contacts. (Including Whatsapp, etc...) Because of GDPR this is a no-brainer. Many other solutions are using Apple Call-Kit, so that the incoming call is identified (name is shown) just without any need of contacts to be present in the native contact app. I didn't found anything belonging Call-Kit or any other possible solution for this issue, yet. There MUST be any better solutions except syncronizing all the contacts, isn't it? ANY Answer is highly appreciated. (At least the positive ones ) Regards, Patrick!No Contact sync on several Desk phones
We use different types of desk phones for customers with Teams Telephone System. The synchronization between Outlook and Teams desktop app on Windows works. But the Teams contacts don't show up on the desk phones. It affects all users, in different companies. It affects providers like Yealink (VP59) as well as Lenovo. Surely it can't be that the most important function of a desk phone doesn't work? Latest firmware updates didn't help. The manufacturer points to Microsoft as it is clearly an app issue and not a manufacturer issue
