Outlook 2013's Contacts have a new default view called People and new Contact Cards. I think the People view is confusing and contact cards make using contacts more complicated. They are definitely not my favorite new features, and based on the number of questions I receive, the People view and Contact cards are a source of confusion for many users.
"I cannot change the contact photo while editing."
The contact photo can't be changed from the Contact card. Switch to the View ribbon and apply a different view. Open the familiar contact form to access the Picture button on the Home ribbon, Options chunk. (Or double click on the photo to select a new one.)
You can also open the contact form from the new Contact card, if it has links under View Source. When the card is in Edit mode, the entries under View source are not clickable - click Cancel to exit Edit mode.
"I cannot find the attachment I just added to a contact."
The new contact cards don't display the attachments. To access attachments added to contacts you'll need to switch to another view and locate the contact or click the link under View Source to open the contact form.
I am working in Outlook 2016 and can type in a contact name in the "TO" line, however I cannot see it in my contacts? Any suggestions?
does the contact exist? If it's only in the autocomplete cache, you'll only see it when you type in the To field.
There are utilities at the end of this article that can export the autocomplete cache so you can import it into contacts.
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/email/understanding-outlooks-autocomplete-cache-nk2/ or right click on the entry when it comes up in the To field and choose Add to Contacts.
First of all let me say, what a fantastic resource your website is for Outlook users. I found lots of really useful info, tips and tricks. Thank you Diane!
I recently upgrade from Outlook 2013 to 2016 and boy am I sorry!
With Outlook 2013, whenever I got an email from someone already in my contacts and I wished to change some detail of the contact, all I needed to do was double click on the contact name from inside the email, and then click on the “View Source” link. So easy so powerful!
However since upgrading the “View Source” links are all gone from the contact card. (To make sure this was not an upgrade issue, I created a new contact, sent the contact an email from a separate email system, and then checked to see if I could access the “view source” option from the received email, like I used to be able to do in Outlook 2013).
Click on this link to see an illustration of what I’m trying to explain - https://bit.ly/Outlook2016ViewSourceIsBroken
Would love to know if others are having a problem, or if there is a solution…
Regards
Tom
That is likely from the autocomplete cache (yes, they are now including cached addresses in search results and such). There is a reg key to block this and/or you can set a reg key to use the old behavior that opened the contact form directly.
Use contacts, not cards: https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/use-outlooks-contacts-contact-cards/
Edit the registry and add the following key to the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook
DWORD (32-bit) value: DoNotIncludeNickNameCacheInSearch
Value data: 1
to see the full contact card by changing the registry does not work.
The registry change using:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice15.0CommonContactcard
Turnonlegacygaldialog value 1
does not work for me in Windows 10 and Outlook 2013.
View source on the open contact card does not show on any contact card
View source: if it's not listed, does the contact exist? Outlook (stupidly IMHO) displays the contact card for people in your autocomplete list but the view source link is missing.
Did you enter the reg key yourself or use my prepared reg file? Try the reg file.
I updated a contact and now I can't open it. Outlook saved the updated info somewhere, but I don't remember where. Can anyone help?
Did you try searching for the contact? Did you update the actual contact or the autocomplete entry? (Yes, Outlook 2013/2016 will show you the cached entry when you search the Address book).
Why can't I add e-mail addresses to contacts directly when in list view? I can add any other information, but once I get to the e-mail I just get dings when I type and nothing is entered. I have to enter the e-mail through the contact card after double clicking on the name.
AFAIK, it's not editable because you can set formatting properties on the address (always use plain text, let outlook decide) - it was a lot easier to set that in old versions of Outlook (so you'll probably never see that dialog in 2013/2016).
How can I change view in the People/Contacts to show the name & phone# only like it used to be in the old version of Outlook, rather than the entire contents of the card?
Do you want to change this in the popup mini cards or the new, large card that shows in the reading pane? you can edit the little cards using the method at the end of this page: https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/outlook-2010/turn-contact-cards/
I haven't tried it on the people cards in the reading pane.
Why do some of my Outlook Contacts pictures turn blank over time. I'll explain...I create a contact...add a picture...then after a week or two...I open the contact back up and the picture is blank...not empty...just blank...and the picture is still attached because when I left click it say do you want to delete or change picture...if I delete and re add the picture...it still shows blank...If I create new contact and use the same picture it displays without a problem. Have seen this across multiple file types...jpeg...bmp...etc.
What type of email account? Do you sync with a smartphone or tablet?
I hate the new contact cards and find their behaviour unpredictable. When I am in Outlook, I want to see the information I have stored in Outlook, not LinkedIn or any other social networks. In previous versions of Outlook, I could type a name into the contact search field in the upper left and open the desired contact with one click in the resulting list. Now I don't know what I will get form this list. Occasionally, if I am lucky, it will open a n Outlook contact for me (what I want). More often it will display a contact card, which sometimes has a link that I can click through to reach the Outlook contact. Sometimes, it just displays an e-mail address properties dialog, from which there is no way to reach the Outlook contact, even though a corresponding Outlook contact exists. As a result, I have resorted to other methods of searching for and opening contacts, but all are far more cumbersome than the previous method described, and require me to go through the link in the contact card. Is there some magical registry entry I can hack to restore the previous functionality and ban the contact cards?
You can't eliminate the new ones, the ones you see in the (awful) People view.
You can get rid of the little cards that come up when you hover over an email address in the To or From fields. https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/outlook-2010/turn-contact-cards/