Comments on: How to remove, merge and clean up duplicate contacts in Outlook

In this article you will learn how to merge duplicate contacts in Outlook 2016 and 2013 without using any third-party tools, and how to keep your contact list clean in the future. Continue reading →

Comments page 2. Total comments: 71

  1. Hello,

    I just merged a backed up PST with the OST recently.Now some contacts does not show up.I shows up on the phone,I checked its not in the Phone memory.
    Also some emails does not show up, I checked the Indexing status it shows completed.
    Please help..

  2. Quite complicated method described above.
    In newest Android phones I found merge command. There are also external apps for deduplication, some other contact managers offer merge function on selected contacts.
    Shame that Outlook doesn't have these very desired functions (merge and remove duplicates).
    I'm using freeware ODIR to remove duplicates, but ODIR doesn't work in Outlook 2013 anymore. On Android there are also some apps for duplicate removal.

    1. Hello, Marek,

      Thank you for your comment. Hope Microsoft will implement these helpful options one day.

  3. Extremely helpful! Thank you so much!

  4. I stumbled on what I think is a lot simpler/easier method: Just select and drag the duplicate contacts to another contact folder and hit undo (ctl-z). When Outlook is moving the contacts back it triggers the "Duplicate Contact Detected" dialog where you click update and it merges the two.

  5. There is a problem with notes in each contact that make the csv file use more than a row for each contact and does not have a category. Not usefull for excel. Any other idea? :-(

    1. Hello, Gustavo,

      Looks like you need a custom VBA function to generate the correct CSV file.

      Sorry we cannot assist you better.

  6. I had a mess of duplicates in my Outlook. I followed the procedure above and tried the Excel Add-in and it worked beautifully. Thank you very much!

  7. You are definitely my new best friend! Thank you! :)

  8. Thanks! The .csv trick worked great, and saved me a lot of time.

  9. Baffled! I am trying to follow the 2013 instructions, I click on People and the list appears, I click on the first of the contacts to link, but nowhere that I can see is there something that says edit or the three dots. Where on the screen should I be looking? Thank you for any assistance.

    1. Hello, Karol,

      Please make sure you have the Reading pane visible for the Contacts folder you selected.

      1. Select the View tab on the ribbon.
      2. Go to the Layout group.
      3. Reading Pane - the Right value should be selected.
      Then you can find the "Edit" and "..." buttons to the right of Outlook Reading Pane.

      Hope this helps.

  10. Thank you - very clever 'indirect' way of merging duplicate contacts!

  11. I have Outlook 2010 for windows and also use icloud. Under Outlook I have "Outlook" files listed under My Contacts and "iCloud" files. I prefer to use the iCloud files so that info will go to my iphone. I also have folders created for different types of contacts, i.e. Christmas Card, Teams, etc. Is there a way that my contacts won't be duplicated if they are in more than one folder?

    1. Hello, Mary,

      Sorry, we cannot help you with this. Looks like your task can be fulfilled only with a custom solution.

  12. Thank you. Works like magic.

  13. I found that dragging all of my contacts to the newly created folder to move them and then repeating that to move them all back, Outlook checks for duplicates. It's an even simpler method than what you have outlined here.

  14. Microsoft Outlook 2013 is showing my personal contacts from my iphone. what can i do to revert this. My outlook is for business only and don't want my personal contacts to show there. thanks

    1. Hi Adan,

      Sorry, we are not able to help with this issue. I can only advise contacting the Microsoft support service.

  15. Hi
    Great stuff, used the merge duplicate contacts in 2013 and it worked a treat. Not sure why you need "merge the dupecontacts with the original" stage but i followed every step and it worked just great.
    Thank you.
    Giff

  16. I downloaded the trial version of the combined rows wizard and it worked great! Easy to use, and I needed it badly. I had a lot of cross-linked records (corrupt data) that caused a ton of duplicates. It took 2,451 rows and merged them down into 36! Then I just searched the spreadsheet for semicolons and made decisions of what to keep vs. trash.

    One thing I'm unsure of is which "wins" between the Office 365 Exchange Server and Outlook. Hopefully Outlook wins, so all those duplicates will be deleted from my contacts on Office 365. Taking it further, I then hope that Exchange wins and pushes the changes down to iPad & iPhone, which also have those 2,000+ dupes. Any idea how those syncs work?

    Thanks for a great article and great Excel add-in! Every time I try to scroll through my iPhone's contacts there are literally hundreds of entries for the same person, so hopefully this will resolve it...?

    Chris

    1. Hello Chris,

      I am really glad to know the Combined Rows Wizard has been helpful to you, thank you very much for your feedback!

      Sorry, I cannot state anything with certainly regarding iPad & iPhone because I have different sets of contacts in Outlook and iPhone (business vs. personal : ) Usually, there is a setting to mark the main contacts, so in theory, syncing contacts with Outlook should resolve the issue. Anyway, I would strongly advise to backup the iPhone right before syncing the contacts in case something goes wrong.

  17. Hi Svetlana,
    This really helped. Thanks. More so for making the steps so simple and easy to apply!

    For some reason I was not able to download the excel add-in (trial version).

    I have another problem. My office uses MS Exchange (hosted server). I am being told that the contact detail fields in Exchange are far limited in comparison to that in the Outlook. SO there is no way to have my colleague's second (personal) email address saved or even their personal mobile number. We used to have all this earlier where the Admin would circulate details of the new joiness.
    I find this pretty retarded. The only solution my IT is offering is that of manually adding these details in Outlook after the contacts are imported from Exchange's Global Address Book.
    Have you come across this issue and any thoughts?
    Thanks in advance.
    Have a great day.
    Best Regards
    Jayesh

    1. Hi HJ,

      Of course, MS Exchange has some limitations compared to Outlook, but as far as I know the limitations are not that strict. It's hard to say anything more specific without seeing your Exchange Server settings. I am afraid the only person who knows all the details is your administrator : (

  18. ANONYMOUS !!!!!!!!!
    February 23, 2014 at 8:38 pm
    "This is sick. It’s 2014."

    Your comment is not needed thank you very much !
    You are obviously surfing to get something for free, so if you don't like it go somewhere else !!!
    Pity I cannot see your E-mail address!!

    Svetlana, thanks very much for this much needed "program", I will definitely use it and are keeping your address so I can purchase some other programs from you!

    Kind Regards

    Joe.

    1. Hello Joe!

      Thank you very much for a thumb up, I really appreciate it!

      In fact, most of the solutions described in this article are free and can be accomplished using built-in Outlook tools. The only third-party add-in used in the first solution is Combine Rows Wizard for Excel. But this is just an optional time-saving alternative to quickly merge duplicate rows into one. I thought it might be helpful to those who work with large Excel spreadsheets. You can merge duplicate Outlook contacts without it, as described further in the article, this will simply take a bit more time : )

  19. Hi Svetlana,

    Very useful article. One thing that still troubles me is what happens to phone numbers when re-importing them. This seems to give mixed results.
    Do you have suggestions?

    1. Hi Ivo,

      It's hard to say when may cause this without seeing your entries. Can you please send us a screenshot of the "mixed results" at support@ablebits.com so that I understand the problem better?

  20. Hi,
    how can upload the Bulk photo to outlook contacts?

    1. Hi Ajish,

      To my best knowledge, this is not possible.

  21. how to syncronize contacts from gmail to outlook

    1. Hi Lipe,

      A new version of Google Apps Sync (available in paid accounts) syncs contacts as well as calendars and other items.

      As a free alternative, you can check out one of the third party tools: gSyncit (described in this article), GO Contact Sync Mod (open source tool to synchronize Outlook contacts with Google Mail), Local Sync, Contacts Sync (paid and free versions are available).

  22. This is sick. It's 2014. You used to click a button to merge contact. Now you need a degree to do it.

    1. I cannot say I disagree with you. Some features tend to become more and more complicated as Office evolves...

  23. I followed the aforementioned instruction. The file(s) will not import as they show not to be supported.

    1. Hi Tom,
      This is very strange. Please let me know which Office version you use and what exactly the error message says (a screenshot of the error message would be very helpful).

  24. do you know of a consolidate addin for excel 2007 please?

    1. Hi John,

      We have the Consolidate Worksheets Wizard for Excel that works with all Excel versions including Excel 2007. You can find more details about this add-in and download a trial here. Hopefully this tool will prove useful to you.

  25. Great information.

    I am wondering how this all works with contacts containing a contact photo.

    The photo will not export to an Excel csv file.

    1. Hi Mike,

      You are right, photos won't be exported. But when you are merging the deduped contacts imported from Excel with the original ones (step 5 in the article), Outlook will pull a photo from the existing contact and add it to the merged contact. Anyway, you can backup the contacts before merging, just in case : )

      1. Hi Svetlana
        I have had a problem running the Merge Data Add in. I get an exception report and have copied the details. Will email it to you if you give me your email address.

        Many thanks
        Brian

  26. Hi Svetlana, I have to tell you how grateful I am for finding this piece, it was so helpful. I'll share the link with colleagues who will be very happy to find it's not a dreadful process after all. Simply fantastic, thank you again.

  27. Worked great!

  28. Hi Bob,

    I am glad to know it worked for you. Thanks for your comment!

  29. Worked like a charm. Especially liked your shortcuts! Thanks.

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