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Searching for Contacts in Multiple Accounts

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› Outlook › People › Searching for Contacts in Multiple Accounts

Last reviewed on January 20, 2017     2 Comments

An Outlook user with two accounts in his profile had a question about searching for contacts.

When I use Find a Contact and click on a contact how I can I determine which account the contact is in? I see the In folder field but it does not tell me which Account the contact is in.

There are a couple of ways to find out which folder a contact is in, depending on how you search. Using the Find a Contact search field (Search People in new versions), you would open the contact and press Ctrl+Shift+F to open Advanced Find. Click the Browse button; the Contacts folder the item is in will be checked and visible.
use advanced find to locate the folder

If you use Instant Search in the Contacts folder, add the Outlook Data File field to List view. This will show you the account or data file name where the contact folder is located.
outlook data file name field
To add the Outlook Data File field to the view, switch to the View tab, click View Settings then Columns. Select All Mail Fields** and find Outlook Data File field in the list. Select it then click Add-->. (** Fields that are used in all folders can be added from any of the All [items] lists)

If you use Outlook 2013 or 2016, the contact cards in People view list the folder and account name under View Source. I'm not a fan of the contact cards but the link the contact with the folder and account names is one of the few things to like about the people view and contact cards.
Outlook Contact cards view source

Searching for Contacts in Multiple Accounts was last modified: January 20th, 2017 by Diane Poremsky
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Related Posts:

  • Understanding Outlook's New Contact Cards
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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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Antony Upward (@guest_215759)
August 16, 2020 5:00 pm
#215759

Hi Diane,

Thanks for this answer... I have three slightly different problems searching using "Search People"

1. How do I get Outlook 2016 "Search People" to search in the two contact folders in my default mailbox (as well as the list of all the emails addresses in the autocomplete list)?

2. Similarly I have both my contact lists as part of my address book, but the search address book dialog insists that I pick one of the contact lists first before it will search, i.e. address book search won't search both contact lists at the same time.

3. And...on a related note: why does a contact with a company name, but no person name, appear in the Search People results as a blank entry? I've tried every combination of "file as" in the contact to no avail. The only fix I found so far is to repeat the company name as the full name (as if this contact was a person)

Many thanks for your excellent work at SlipStick! Appreciated.

Antony

Last edited 3 years ago by Antony Upward
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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
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Reply to  Antony Upward
August 16, 2020 10:52 pm
#215760

1.Search people does the default folder only.
2.Searching in the address book is limited to the current folder. This can't be changed.
3.The address book fields are limited to full name and display name. I'm not sure why - but those are the only fields displayed for contacts folders.

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