Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the
meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them.

Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of
that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties
and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder
for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein.


Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I
thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it
out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright
on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac.

And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.


Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the
meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them.

Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of
that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties
and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein.

Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I
thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it
out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright
on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac.

And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.

Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did Microsoft
take that away?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:26:39 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the
meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them.

Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties
and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein.

Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright
on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac.

And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.

Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did

Microsoft take that away?

More

A link to a simple explanation of how it worked at my former company follows. This is a current article. I don't think this has changed in 20 years. I did not use the exact terminology in my first answer, but the concept was correct.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-contacts-the-address-book-in-outlook

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2023-01-07 06:07, Thomas E. wrote:

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:26:39 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share >>> Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the
meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a >>> contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them.

Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of
that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties
and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder
for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein. >>>

Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I
thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it >>> out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright
on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac.

And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.


Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did

Microsoft take that away?

More

A link to a simple explanation of how it worked at my former company follows. This is a current article. I don't think this has changed in 20 years. I did not use the exact terminology in my first answer, but the concept was correct.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-contacts-the-address-book-in-outlook

I'm fully aware of the fact that there is a difference.

What is stupid is that contacts from one source—your own contacts—CAN BE USED as an address book...

...but contacts from another source—shared contacts from another user,
or a shared mailbox—CAN'T.

It is the very same type of data, simply from a different source.


Oh, and that article is extremely shallow.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 1:22:10 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

On 2023-01-07 06:07, Thomas E. wrote:

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:26:39 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share >>> Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the
meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a >>> contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them. >>>
Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of >>> that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties >>> and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder >>> for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein.


Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I
thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it >>> out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright >>> on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac. >>>
And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.


Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did

Microsoft take that away?

More

A link to a simple explanation of how it worked at my former company follows. This is a current article. I don't think this has changed in 20 years. I did not use the exact terminology in my first answer, but the concept was correct.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-contacts-the-address-book-in-outlook

I'm fully aware of the fact that there is a difference.

What is stupid is that contacts from one source—your own contacts—CAN BE USED as an address book...

...but contacts from another source—shared contacts from another user,
or a shared mailbox—CAN'T.

It is the very same type of data, simply from a different source.

Oh, and that article is extremely shallow.

Well, this guy says it works, and shows the screenshots to prove it:

https://www.labyrinthit.com/how-to-get-shared-contacts-showing-in-outlook-address-book/

If it's not working for you maybe look in Policies? Or maybe you just can't follow instructions?

Here is a somewhat different solution

https://gartnertechnology.com/blog/2020/10/04/outlook-365-shared-contacts-in-address-book-solved/

And another

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/how-to-set-shared-contacts-as-an-address-book/a56e0e9b-b2a9-46e5-ab41-e0e6db7054b2

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2023-01-09 12:03, Thomas E. wrote:

On Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 1:22:10 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

On 2023-01-07 06:07, Thomas E. wrote:

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:26:39 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share >>>>> Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the
meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a >>>>> contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them. >>>>>
Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of >>>>> that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties >>>>> and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder >>>>> for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein. >>>>>

Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I >>>>> thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it >>>>> out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright >>>>> on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac. >>>>>
And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.


Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did

Microsoft take that away?

More

A link to a simple explanation of how it worked at my former company follows. This is a current article. I don't think this has changed in 20 years. I did not use the exact terminology in my first answer, but the concept was correct.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-contacts-the-address-book-in-outlook

I'm fully aware of the fact that there is a difference.

What is stupid is that contacts from one source—your own contacts—CAN BE >> USED as an address book...

...but contacts from another source—shared contacts from another user,
or a shared mailbox—CAN'T.

It is the very same type of data, simply from a different source.


Oh, and that article is extremely shallow.

Well, this guy says it works, and shows the screenshots to prove it:

https://www.labyrinthit.com/how-to-get-shared-contacts-showing-in-outlook-address-book/

I know about that page. I visited it in my research to try and fix this.

But empiricism trumps a web page from nearly 2 years ago.

You get that things change rapidly in the tech world, right?

If it's not working for you maybe look in Policies? Or maybe you just can't follow instructions?

Here is a somewhat different solution

https://gartnertechnology.com/blog/2020/10/04/outlook-365-shared-contacts-in-address-book-solved/

That MIGHT work...

...but it hardly addresses the question of why people who've been
assigned Owner permissions to a shared mailbox should NEED to do it.

And another

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/how-to-set-shared-contacts-as-an-address-book/a56e0e9b-b2a9-46e5-ab41-e0e6db7054b2

Even older.

And I addressed the idiocy that is Microsoft's public folder support to
a certain degree, and it's been echoed there.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 4:10:22 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

On 2023-01-09 12:03, Thomas E. wrote:

On Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 1:22:10 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

On 2023-01-07 06:07, Thomas E. wrote:

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:26:39 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share
Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the >>>>> meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a
contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them.

Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of
that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties >>>>> and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder
for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein.


Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I >>>>> thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it
out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright >>>>> on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac. >>>>>
And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.


Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did

Microsoft take that away?

More

A link to a simple explanation of how it worked at my former company follows. This is a current article. I don't think this has changed in 20 years. I did not use the exact terminology in my first answer, but the concept was correct.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-contacts-the-address-book-in-outlook

I'm fully aware of the fact that there is a difference.

What is stupid is that contacts from one source—your own contacts—CAN BE
USED as an address book...

...but contacts from another source—shared contacts from another user, >> or a shared mailbox—CAN'T.

It is the very same type of data, simply from a different source.


Oh, and that article is extremely shallow.

Well, this guy says it works, and shows the screenshots to prove it:

https://www.labyrinthit.com/how-to-get-shared-contacts-showing-in-outlook-address-book/

I know about that page. I visited it in my research to try and fix this.

But empiricism trumps a web page from nearly 2 years ago.

You get that things change rapidly in the tech world, right?

If it's not working for you maybe look in Policies? Or maybe you just can't follow instructions?

Here is a somewhat different solution

https://gartnertechnology.com/blog/2020/10/04/outlook-365-shared-contacts-in-address-book-solved/

That MIGHT work...

...but it hardly addresses the question of why people who've been
assigned Owner permissions to a shared mailbox should NEED to do it.

And another

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/how-to-set-shared-contacts-as-an-address-book/a56e0e9b-b2a9-46e5-ab41-e0e6db7054b2

Even older.

And I addressed the idiocy that is Microsoft's public folder support to
a certain degree, and it's been echoed there.

I see the issue, and was hoping that one of those links might help. I am moving away from Outlook now that I no longer require my company domain email address. Still own the domain, but only because I might be able to sell it. Not likely, but maybe!

I did not renew the GoDaddy Office 365 subscription, and moved to the Microsoft family plan. All our iOS personal email/calendar is now on Google apps. On Windows we still use Outlook, but I'm looking for something else. We still use the other Office
apps on both platforms.

Can you use a different mail solution too?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, January 9, 2023 at 4:10:22 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

On 2023-01-09 12:03, Thomas E. wrote:

On Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 1:22:10 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

On 2023-01-07 06:07, Thomas E. wrote:

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 10:26:39 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

On Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 6:39:13 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Outlook is a big steaming pile of crap.

Example 1

If you access a shared Contacts folder or a Contacts folder from a Share
Mailbox, there is no way to make them an "Address Book" within the >>>>> meaning of Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook ecosystem.

So when you click on "To:" in a new mail message, and go to search for a
contact found in either of those Contacts folders, you can't find them.

Now, I've seen discussions where people say "Just get the properties of
that folder, click on the "Outlook Address Book" tab of the properties >>>>> and check "Use as Address Book...

...only no such tab exists for those folders.

Outlook doesn't understand that one might want to use a Contacts folder
for—I don't know—accessing the contact information contained therein.


Example 2

In order to work around the ridiculous issue in the first example, I >>>>> thought I'd try creating a "Public folder mailbox" and before rolling it
out to other users, I thought I'd make sure that things looked alright >>>>> on my Mac.

Only there is no way to access "Public Folders" from Outlook for Mac. >>>>>
And reading the help, I saw this:

"On the Tools menu, click Public Folders."

But on that menu, there is NO SUCH COMMAND.


Contacts you can't search as an address book...

...and folders you can't access.

That's odd. At my former employer, this was going on 20 years ago, our IT team set up Outlook so that we had a local address book of non-company contacts and a global internal address book for the entire company. Seemed to work quite well. Did

Microsoft take that away?

More

A link to a simple explanation of how it worked at my former company follows. This is a current article. I don't think this has changed in 20 years. I did not use the exact terminology in my first answer, but the concept was correct.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-contacts-the-address-book-in-outlook

I'm fully aware of the fact that there is a difference.

What is stupid is that contacts from one source—your own contacts—CAN BE
USED as an address book...

...but contacts from another source—shared contacts from another user, >> or a shared mailbox—CAN'T.

It is the very same type of data, simply from a different source.


Oh, and that article is extremely shallow.

Well, this guy says it works, and shows the screenshots to prove it:

https://www.labyrinthit.com/how-to-get-shared-contacts-showing-in-outlook-address-book/

I know about that page. I visited it in my research to try and fix this.

But empiricism trumps a web page from nearly 2 years ago.

You get that things change rapidly in the tech world, right?

If it's not working for you maybe look in Policies? Or maybe you just can't follow instructions?

Here is a somewhat different solution

https://gartnertechnology.com/blog/2020/10/04/outlook-365-shared-contacts-in-address-book-solved/

That MIGHT work...

...but it hardly addresses the question of why people who've been
assigned Owner permissions to a shared mailbox should NEED to do it.

And another

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/how-to-set-shared-contacts-as-an-address-book/a56e0e9b-b2a9-46e5-ab41-e0e6db7054b2

Even older.

And I addressed the idiocy that is Microsoft's public folder support to
a certain degree, and it's been echoed there.

Update on purging Outlook: On my Windows 11 laptop I have gone to Windows Mail and it's working well for mail, calendar and contacts. BUT, on the other laptop, Windows 10, that same Mail app would not import Google's contacts. When it got to that step it
stopped at "importing" the contacts. I left it there for an hour and not one contact showed up. So, I set up 3 desktop Chrome shortcuts to the wife's Google account - Gmail, calendar, and contacts. AAARGH!!!!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)