Let’s talk a bit more about adding an entry to the Outlook Address Book. As we talked about earlier, the Outlook Address Book doesn’t contain contacts; it just lists all the sources that contacts are stored in. So, if you try to add a contact when you have the Outlook Address Book selected in the source menu, Outlook will place that entry into your main contacts folder instead. (In a moment, we’ll talk about how to set your primary contacts folder. By default, it’s the contacts folder in the personal folders file where your mail is delivered.)

You can add a contact just by clicking the New Contact () button on the address book toolbar. When you click this button, Outlook will first confirm your actions with this window:

 

 

You can pick which type of contact you want to create, and which folder you want to create it in. (If you try to choose Outlook Address Book from the drop-down menu at the bottom, you will not be able to choose an entry type. Outlook will display a message telling you that you can’t create contacts in this location. You may get the same message if you try to create a contact in a folder that you don’t have permissions for, like the Global Address List hosted on an Exchange Server.)

 

Once you choose your contact type and click OK, you’ll see either the normal distribution list form or the regular contact form, depending on what type of entry you’re creating. Then, you just fill in the form as you normally would, and click Save and Close to return to the address book screen.

 

If you want to edit a contact or distribution list from any of your folders, you can do so as long as you have proper permissions for that folder. Just double-click the entry to bring up the properties form, make your changes, and hit save and close! (You can also select the contact and click the  button on the toolbar, or right-click the contact and click Properties.)

 

Similarly, you can delete a contact or distribution list from the Outlook Address Book (again, as long as you have proper permissions). Just select the contact and press delete on your keyboard. Or, you can use the delete button () on the toolbar, or you can right-click the contact and click Delete. (This only removes the contact from your address book, not your contacts folder.) However, this method isn’t recommended as there is no easy way to re-add the contact to your Outlook Address Book.