MS Outlook: Mac vs Win Contacts

[lockerc18]

I have Office365 on both my Mac (MacOS Sierra) and Yoga (Win10). Both systems are at the most current service level. Both Office environments are, too.

I have a problem with contacts in Outlook on my Win system, but not on my Mac. On the Mac, when I installed Outlook, I got all my contacts just fine. When I type a TO: email address, I get a running list of all the contacts that start with the letters I'm typing. Just pick one and I'm good to go.

But I get no Contacts on my Win system. There's no type ahead feature that lists contacts the same way that it's done on my Mac. I get nada.

So, the question is, how do I get Contacts in Outlook on my Win system like I do on my Mac?

I know, this might not be the right venue to ask that. And I know that Win10 relies on the People app to collect contact info, and that shows through into the native email app. But not into Outlook.

I've seen some manual work arounds where contacts can be exported into Outlook. But that isn't at all what this program should do. I should be able to see my contacts on Win Outlook the same as I do with the Mac version, and also with the native Win email app, without having to go through hacks and contortions. It is yet another basic flaw in Windows that this doesn't work consistently between the systems.

I don't think it makes a difference, but the version of Outlook on my Mac is 15.29, and on Win10 it's 16.0.7526.1015. So, these aren't at the same release level, and I believe they aren't at the same code bases, either. I seem to remember that they aren't even the same product under the covers. The Mac version is based on Entourage or some such. But that might be different now.

Any thoughts? I've seem comments on the MS sites and elsewhere about this, and no one has a good fix. And MS sure as heck doesn't give a darn about this, either. It's just the standard radio silence from them.

Thanks.

 

[lockerc18]

I have Office365 on both my Mac (MacOS Sierra) and Yoga (Win10). Both systems are at the most current service level. Both Office environments are, too.

I have a problem with contacts in Outlook on my Win system, but not on my Mac. On the Mac, when I installed Outlook, I got all my contacts just fine. When I type a TO: email address, I get a running list of all the contacts that start with the letters I'm typing. Just pick one and I'm good to go.

But I get no Contacts on my Win system. There's no type ahead feature that lists contacts the same way that it's done on my Mac. I get nada.

So, the question is, how do I get Contacts in Outlook on my Win system like I do on my Mac?

I know, this might not be the right venue to ask that. And I know that Win10 relies on the People app to collect contact info, and that shows through into the native email app. But not into Outlook.

I've seen some manual work arounds where contacts can be exported into Outlook. But that isn't at all what this program should do. I should be able to see my contacts on Win Outlook the same as I do with the Mac version, and also with the native Win email app, without having to go through hacks and contortions. It is yet another basic flaw in Windows that this doesn't work consistently between the systems.

I don't think it makes a difference, but the version of Outlook on my Mac is 15.29, and on Win10 it's 16.0.7526.1015. So, these aren't at the same release level, and I believe they aren't at the same code bases, either. I seem to remember that they aren't even the same product under the covers. The Mac version is based on Entourage or some such. But that might be different now.

Any thoughts? I've seem comments on the MS sites and elsewhere about this, and no one has a good fix. And MS sure as heck doesn't give a darn about this, either. It's just the standard radio silence from them.

Thanks.

I hereby nominate this post for the "Most Viewed And Least Replied-To Post Of 2016".

 

[BrianBaughn]

I hereby nominate this post for the "Most Viewed And Least Replied-To Post Of 2016".

Should win.

You left out an important aspect of your situation: Are your contacts synced with one of the online services? Who is hosting your email?

And...by your description of how your contacts "works" with Outlook for Mac and not Outlook for Windows, I'm thinking you're describing what is called, among other names, "collected addresses" and not really the "Contacts" section of Outlook on either platform.

But correct me if I'm wrong!

 

[campyguy]

First question: In your Mac app, are the contacts located locally in the "On My Computer" or relevant online service provider? The last person I helped "fix" this loaded all of their contacts locally - a "doh!" moment that was fixed easily.

And, following up with a supplement to BrianBaughn's first point, contact synching between Outlook to Outlook will only work with Exchange-based online services and Outlook.com Cloud Services.

Furthermore, not knowing how you connect those two apps makes it a bit difficult to help further without wasting time on our end due to speculation. If you're using another cloud provider (Google, iCloud), be careful in that either Outlook app will likely not match fields properly if you use the People app to facilitate this synching, and those who offer "it should just work" using these other cloud services are deluding themselves - if the cloud service is not Exchange-based, use a free Outlook.com account to sync your two Outlook apps, or you'll wish you had...