Quickly find Contacts in Outlook

This post is for anyone using an Exchange email account and accesses their account through Outlook. Scrolling through the list of all the contacts in Outlook's Global Address Book can be cumbersome. Here is how you can improve you search for contacts when creating an email.

Step 1: Open the Address Book from a New Message

Step 2: Change Name Only to More Columns

• Use the Advanced Find to narrow down the list of contacts

Step 3: Type in a partial name, department, location

• Unlike searching with Name Only, More Columns search will not show any contacts until you type something in the search and hit enter/click Go.

Step 4: Select a contact and then Add to the To/Cc/Bcc lines

• This step is the same as usual. Select a contact from the list and then click the To/Cc/Bcc line to add the contact.

• If you have multiple contacts to add in the same area, you can select them all at once and then add them to the line:

• To select multiple contacts at once, select the first contact, hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click on each of the other contacts. Let go of the Ctrl key once you have made your selections, and click whichever To/Cc/Bcc line that is appropriate. 

• If you have a section of contacts all grouped together in the list, click and drag your cursor over the contacts you want to add. A group of contacts can also be added using a Shift Click: Select first contact, Hold the Shift key, and click on the Last contact in the group.

• Once the contacts have been added, click ok to finalize addressing your email.