How to create an Outlook Address Book

Outlook 365 2016 2013 2010 2007
The address book is usually created when you create a Personal Folders profile, but only one address book can be defined for the profile. Fortunately you can easily create additional address books out of the profile for your own needs.

A few important things about the Outlook Address Book:

  • The Outlook Address Book contains the Contacts folders that you see in the Navigation Pane.
  • The Outlook Address Book is maintained internally, as opposed to Personal Address Books, which are stored in their own distinct files.
  • Each Outlook profile can have only one Outlook Address Book.

To create a new Outlook Address Book for the current Outlook profile, follow next steps:

   1.   From the Tools menu, select E-mail Accounts... to display the Email Accounts dialog box.

   2.   Select the Add a new directory or address book option and click the Next button.

E-mail Accounts in Outlook 2003

   3.   Select the Additional Address Books option and click the Next button.

E-mail Accounts 2 in Outlook 2003

You will see a dialog box containing a list of Address Book types you can create: Outlook Address Book or Personal Address Book. The Outlook Address Book type holds your Contacts folders and can be defined only once per profile.

E-mail Accounts 3 in Outlook 2003

   4.   Do one of the following:

  • If you want to create an Outlook Address Book, click that option and then click the Next button. Outlook creates the new Address Book and stores it in your Outlook profile. (You will receive an error message if you already have an Outlook Address Book defined for your profile.)
  • Click a Personal Address Book and then click the Next button to open the Personal Address Book dialog box:
    Personal Address Book

    You can enter the name of the new Personal Address Book and a location.

   5.   To start using your new Address Book, you must close Outlook and then reopen it.

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