People Pane missing in Outlook 365

Thank you Brian, I know about the "contacts/people" tab at the bottom but that only brings up people who are in my contacts. Not everyone who emails me becomes a "contact" unless I add them to my contacts. Up until about a month ago, I had the People Pane which associated new emails with very old emails so I know when someone has contacted me before. Now it's gone and I no longer can tell when someone has contacted me more than once unless I do a search of the person's name. Doing that for every email would be insane.

With my business (photography), it's very important that I know this as I have special pricing structures for people who already know my work - different email responses for new clients as well... can't tell them apart now.

Why would Microsoft remove this? My computer does the indexing specifically for this purpose and now it's useless.

Is there another Microsoft Outlook version that still has the People Pane? This appears to be a problem with Outlook 365 and Outlook 2019 only but again... why would they take it away?

Thank you again... very kind of you to try to help

Victory Jon

Got it, thank you - it must have happened when I "upgraded" to Microsoft 365 which replaced my outlook I had before with outlook 365. What ever version I had before had the People Pane - now i see it's not a part of Office 365. One day it was there, the next is was not but that was when I did the upgrade - more like a downgrade it seems. I'll have to find a way to revert to my old version but so far, no luck.

Thanks again

I was wondering if it's really that Microsoft 365 doesn't have the People Pane. Recently the Outlook at my office has been 'upgrade' to Microsoft 365 and the People Pane isn't there now. However, some of my colleagues, whose Outlook has also been upgraded, can see the People Pane.

That's really, really odd. I upgraded all of my computers (2 desktops and 1 laptop) to Microsoft 365 and now cannot go back to Office 2016. I tried to uninstall the new version hoping the old version would still be there but it was not. I don't have the old disk anymore and MS does not support 2016 or even offer it as a download. I'm stuck with the new version and none of them (the computers) have the People Pane. It's made my work 10 times more difficult as I have to search every email to see if I have previous emails from potential/existing clients. It was much better when Outlook connected the dots for me.

If you find another way to get the People Pane to work, let me know...

Thank you

Thank you Brian

For the Contacts/People view to work, I would have to add EVERY email address of people who email me to my "Contacts" manually or automatically - this is not what I want to do as I don't need EVERY email to be in my contacts. I only add regular clients, friends or family to my contacts. If someone bought a photo from me 10 years ago, I would not have that person in my contacts - but if that same person contacted me today - the People Pane would let me know I have an email from 10 years ago and that this person is already a client. VERY IMPORTANT that I know this. Without the People Pane, I have to search to see previous emails from people NOT in my contacts - like the example i gave.

Bummer... right?

Desktop Outlook doesn't have a "People" pane and never did. It has a Contacts view as I described. Web-based Outlook does have a People view. Windows 10 has a People app.

Brian,

You are wrong.  Several months ago I purchased Office 365 for my desktop PC and a People Pane was definitely there in the Layout section of View because I used it.  Then one day it was gone.

Please bring it back.

Bill Hannant

I agree Bill, I have been told that it was never there but same thing for me - I was using Outlook 365 for over a year on all 3 of my computers and the People Pane was there - Now it's gone on all of my computers - it was likely during one of the regular Windows updates.

being told it was NEVER there is ridiculous - makes you wonder if you are going insane.

Thank you for posting, thought I was alone in this...

I hope they bring it back

Jon