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Hiding Global Address Book Fields

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› Exchange Server › Hiding Global Address Book Fields

Last reviewed on July 5, 2019     11 Comments

I’m occasionally asked if the address book can be customized. While it can’t be customized to the degree some users desire, unnecessary fields can be removed from the view used by the Global Address List using an old Outlook registry edit that still works in Outlook 2016.

The Global Address list in Outlook’s address book displays the following fields: Name, Title, Business Phone, Location, Department, Email Address, Company, and alias. Any or all of these fields, with the exception of Name, can be hidden, leaving users with a cleaner looking address list.

Remove fields from the view

To hide the fields, you’ll need to edit the registry.

  1. Open the Registry editor and browse to the Outlook\Preferences key for your version of Outlook. In Outlook 2016, it’s at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences.
  2. Right click on Preferences and select New, Binary value.
  3. Type or paste ABHiddenColumns and press Enter.
  4. Right click on the new value and choose Modify.
  5. To hide all fields except for name, business phone and email address, type the following in the dialog:
    05 00 00 00 1f 00 00 3A 1f 00 16 3A 1f 00 17 3A 1f 00 18 3A 1f 00 19 3A

Edit the registry to hide fields in the GAL

The change should take effect immediately. If the address book is open, you’ll need to refresh it by changing folders.

What do the numbers mean? The first group (05 00 00 00) tells Outlook to hide 5 fields. To hide fewer fields, change the 5 to the correct number of fields you are hiding.

Each block of 4 (1f 00 ## 3A) following it represents a different field:

Column nameValue
Title1f 00 17 3a
Business Phone1f 00 08 3a
Location1f 00 19 3a
E-mail Address1f 00 fe 39
Company1f 00 16 3a
Alias1f 00 00 3a
Department 1f 00 18 3a

Do It For Me

If you want to try it but don’t want to edit the registry, I have some ready to use reg files for Outlook 2007 through 2016. My files leave the name, business phone, and email address fields visible.

Outlook 2016, 2019, 365 Outlook 2013
Outlook 2010 Outlook 2007

More Information

How to hide columns in the Address Book in Outlook 2007 (MSKB)

Hiding Global Address Book Fields was last modified: July 5th, 2019 by Diane Poremsky

Related Posts:

  • Outlook's Address Book is Empty
  • Outlook Address Book Search Order
  • Outlook Contacts, Address Book, and Autocomplete
  • How to Print Outlook Address Books

About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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mdiford (@guest_220374)
June 27, 2023 2:57 am
#220374

большое человеческое СПАСИБО!

0
0
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SSA (@guest_217157)
November 9, 2020 8:29 am
#217157

i there a way to rename the column heders'

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0
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MYK (@guest_215368)
June 9, 2020 9:09 am
#215368

is there any way to add fields?

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  MYK
June 9, 2020 10:21 am
#215370

No, not at this time.

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0
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Mohammed (@guest_213543)
July 4, 2019 8:34 am
#213543

Great post, is there way the sequence of the fields can be changed, say for example bringing the "Company" field after the "Name" field. Thanks

2
0
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Daniel Kemper (@guest_206566)
May 16, 2017 4:16 pm
#206566

Any chance on a reg key hiding those fields when the contact is open from the list?

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Daniel Kemper
May 16, 2017 5:11 pm
#206568

No, that would require customization of the form on the exchange server.

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0
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Becks (@guest_204235)
February 2, 2017 5:56 am
#204235

This is great and exactly what I need to do & works well on workstations. I have tweaked it slightly to cover all versions in one file, and only suppress Department field. Can you advise the best method for use on a Remote Desktop Server where users do not have rights to write to the registry? Group Policy deployment?

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0
Reply
Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Becks
February 2, 2017 11:50 am
#204240

Yes, you would need to deploy using group policy.

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rui (@guest_202837)
November 9, 2016 11:41 am
#202837

Hi Diane,

Can you tell me if there is a way to do that in exchange 2010?

Thanks
Rui

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0
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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  rui
February 2, 2017 11:49 am
#204239

This should work with any version of Exchange. It is also possible for the admin to make some changes on the server that apply to all users. more information is at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124525%28v=exchg.141%29.aspx

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