Contacts do not show when using new mail

Question

Contacts do not show when using new mail

Robert White 5

All my contacts show when I click on People, however when I want to send a new Mail and click on TO: next screen shows a contact list and when click on contacts, contacts loading flashes on screen, but no contacts appear to select. I ran a Norton virus scan and system said no virus or spyware. Don't know what to do?

Stefan Blom 352.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-05-10T00:24:44.6866667+00:00

Are you running Outlook? Which specific Outlook product and which operating system do you have?
Robert White 5 Reputation points

2026-05-10T13:41:30.23+00:00

Still cannot see contacts from picker list. I've tries everything and still no solution. HELP

1 answer

Your answer

Stefan Blom 352.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-05-10T00:24:44.6866667+00:00

Are you running Outlook? Which specific Outlook product and which operating system do you have?
Robert White 5 Reputation points

2026-05-10T13:41:30.23+00:00

Still cannot see contacts from picker list. I've tries everything and still no solution. HELP

Answer 1

Contacts are stored and displayed differently between classic Outlook and the new Outlook, and also between the People view and the address book picker used by the To: field.

Based on similar cases, the contacts are likely stored as cloud contacts in the mailbox (since they appear under People), but the new Outlook client is not correctly loading them into the address picker. To fix this, reset the new Outlook’s local state so it can fully re-sync contacts from the server, then verify they appear when composing mail.

Follow these steps:

Close the new Outlook app completely.
Run the reset command for new Outlook as described in the community guidance (this clears the local cache so Outlook re-downloads mail, calendar, and contacts from the mailbox).
Reopen new Outlook and sign back in.
Wait for the full sync to complete (mail and calendar should finish, then contacts).
Go to People in new Outlook and confirm that contacts are visible there.
Start a new email, select To:, and check that the contacts list now populates instead of staying on “contacts loading.”

If contacts still do not appear in the To: picker after a full resync, verify in Outlook on the web that the contacts exist in the mailbox. If they do, continue using the new Outlook (where People shows them) and avoid relying on classic Outlook for those cloud-only contacts, as classic Outlook will not show them without exporting/importing via .csv or .pst.

If contacts were originally stored only in a local Contacts folder in classic Outlook (for example, in a .pst), they will not automatically appear in new Outlook’s To: picker. In that case, export them from classic Outlook to a .csv file and import them into new Outlook as mailbox contacts, then repeat the steps above to ensure they sync and appear when composing mail.

References:

Outlook contacts not showing in "new" outlook - Microsoft Q&A