Create a new contact group is grayed out in standalone Office Pro 2021

Question

Create a new contact group is grayed out in standalone Office Pro 2021

Carla Thomason 0

I have Microsoft Office Professional 2021. I am trying to create a new contact group, but the option is grayed out. It's for personal use and I am the administrator. It has been activated and everything else works. How can I fix this?

Carla Thomason 0 Reputation points

2026-01-30T18:33:59.0733333+00:00

How can I tell if it's an EAS account?
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Hornblower409 16,075 Reputation points

2026-01-31T07:17:05.62+00:00

How can I tell if it's an EAS account?

File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
Look in the "Type" column.
Anything that says "Exchange"

But I think the Q&A Assist Answer is wrong. I have any number of outlook.com and MS 365 email accounts in Classic Outlook and I can create Contact Groups.

Try this:

Home -> Find -> Address Book
File -> New Entry
Do you have "New Contact Group"?

If not, try selecting a different Address Book back on the main Address Book dialog.

1 answer

Your answer

Carla Thomason 0 Reputation points

2026-01-30T18:33:59.0733333+00:00

How can I tell if it's an EAS account?
Deleted

This comment has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The comment was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.
Hornblower409 16,075 Reputation points

2026-01-31T07:17:05.62+00:00

How can I tell if it's an EAS account?

File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
Look in the "Type" column.
Anything that says "Exchange"

But I think the Q&A Assist Answer is wrong. I have any number of outlook.com and MS 365 email accounts in Classic Outlook and I can create Contact Groups.

Try this:

Home -> Find -> Address Book
File -> New Entry
Do you have "New Contact Group"?

If not, try selecting a different Address Book back on the main Address Book dialog.

Answer 1

If the option to create a new contact group is grayed out in Microsoft Office Professional 2021, it may be due to the fact that you are connected to an Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) account. Contact Groups are not supported when using EAS, which is commonly used for accounts like @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, and @msn.com. In such cases, the New Contact Group button will be unavailable.

If you are using an EAS account, consider exporting your contacts and contact groups to an Outlook Data (.pst) file and then importing them into a new .pst file in Outlook 2021. This way, you can manage your contacts and groups without the limitations imposed by EAS.

For more details on importing and exporting contacts, you can refer to the relevant Microsoft documentation.