Adding a contact to your Outlook contacts list

One of my users asked me yesterday “How do I add a contact from email to my Outlook contacts list?” It turns out that adding a contact from an email to your Outlook 2011 contacts is not an obvious process and not intuitive (at least it was not to me or my user.) Here’s how you can do it:

If you have an email from that person already:

1. Open a message from them.

2. Hover the mouse over their name and a pop-up window should appear.

3. Click the Open Outlook Contact button. (circled in red in the picture below.)

If you don’t have an email from them, but they are listed in your Exchange server’s global address list (GAL):

1. Start composing an email.

2. Enter the person’s name

3. Select their name when it appears. If it doesn’t appear on its own, click the Check Names button in your Outlook toolbar.

4. Hover the mouse over their name and a pop-up window should appear.

5. Click the Open Outlook Contact button. (circled in red in the picture below.)