Contact lists are now missing in Outlook 16.71 from Mac

Hi,
R. Cord here, Independent Expert. Hope you are doing well.

There are a few potential reasons why your contact lists may be missing after the update to version 16.71. Here are a few things you can try to troubleshoot the issue:

Check if the contacts are in the "On My Computer" folder: In Outlook for Mac, select "Contacts" from the bottom left corner, then choose "On My Computer". This will show any locally stored contacts that may not have synced properly after the update.
Check if the contacts are in your Exchange or Microsoft 365 account: If your contacts were synced with an Exchange or Microsoft 365 account, you may need to sign back into your account to sync them with Outlook.
Restore from backup: If you have a backup of your Outlook data, you may be able to restore your contact lists from there.
Rebuild the Outlook database: If none of the above options work, you may need to rebuild the Outlook database. To do this, quit Outlook, then hold down the Option key and open Outlook again. Choose "Database Utility" and select "Rebuild".

If none of these options work, you may want to reach out to Microsoft support for further assistance.

with best regards
R. Cord

What appears to have happened with my Oultook decided to update itself - all of my Apple Contacts are now merged with all my prior Outlook contacts! So they are all mashed together, not that I wanted them to be. However, none of my contact lists were merged and now have gone into ???? The Contacts page on my computer has no entries! Not sure why MS would make this change, but I am now stuck with it.

Not a happy camper at the moment.

Upon further inspection, the "rules" tool is listed but totally disabled. A nice little message: "Rules are not supported for this account" greets you for all accounts! What????? How in the world can a company like MS take a program and go backward? When I first bought Office 2019 I found the "new" Outlook to be lacking and disabled in key areas so switched back to the classic style. Well, now they just force you into this hobbled version. I will be looking for some other clients soon. I have used Entourage and Outlook for years and now this!

You are using the new Outlook - and if you have 16.71, won't have on my computer folders. You can switch back to legacy Outlook - Outlook app menu > select New Outlook to switch back. The option to revery to legacy Outlook should be on the Help menu too.

Rules will work in the legacy version.

Diane:

Thank you for your reply and I am aware that in prior builds one could easily switch back and forth the the "new not improved" Outlook and the classic or legacy Outlook. However, build 16.71 was installed as an automatic update on my computer, I did not choose this version and had no way of knowing it was going to permanently switch me over to the newer Outlook for Mac. I can no longer find the "switch" to go back to my old Outlook. There is no Outlook App menu! Why MS would force us to accept this lame build is beyond me. Two crucial items - email lists and rules are deal breakers for me. I have been using lists for years and they are invaluable. Now I have to individually choose each contact to setup a group email. This was a known bug in the early Outlook 2019 and was never fixed, and it is my opinion that was intentional to force us to Office 365. Rules are key to filtering out garbage that I have no use for. I am currently looking for alternatives, all the while this "new" Outlook continues now for hours downloading all my old emails from my various accounts.

My bad... for some reason, I thought Office was at 16.96 and you have a really old build. Sorry. I should have double checked on my mac.

I have 16.71 and still have New Outlook on the Outlook app menu and also Revert to legacy Outlook on the Help menu.

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There is no Outlook App menu!
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Are you using Outlook at full screen? That will hide the menu bar.