July 15, 2010

Sorting The Outlook Address Book By Last Name

outlookaddressbook6Previously: Displaying Contacts In The Outlook Address Book

When you open the Outlook Address Book to address an email message, the names in your Contacts folder are sorted by first name. Lots of people want them sorted by last name. It’s one of those mildly irritating things that requires changing a deeply hidden setting. It seems like the kind of thing that would be listed under “Options” in the Address Book menu, doesn’t it?

Here’s the sequence from Windows 7 and Outlook 2010. It’s similar in earlier versions of Windows and Office.

  • Open Control Panel.
  • Type “mail” in the search bar at the upper right, and click on “Mail (32 bit)”
  • Click on the “Email accounts” button
  • Click on the “Address books” tab
  • Highlight “Outlook Address Book” and click “Change”
  • Change “Show Names” to “File As (Smith, John)”

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Posted by Bruce Berls | July 15, 2010 11:05 pm | mail, Outlook
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9 Responses to “Sorting The Outlook Address Book By Last Name”

  1. Outlook Address Book And Microsoft Word | bruceb consulting - news Says:
    November 9th, 2010 at 1:06 am

    [...] Previously: Displaying Contacts In The Outlook Address Book Sorting The Outlook Address Book By Last Name [...]

  2. Tim FitzPatrick Says:
    November 23rd, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! I just set up a new PC with Windows 7 and Outlook 2007. I remember making this sorting change years ago, but forgot where it was buried in the Account Settings. It was drivng me crazy until I found your article on Google.

    Why does Microsoft have to make these simple things so hard to do?

    Thanks again.

    - Tim

  3. Mary Jarvis Says:
    September 16th, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    Thank you for this. I knew there was a way to do it but lost my printed instructions. I got a new computer and this has been driving me crazy. This was so helpful. I saved the instructions as a pdf for future reference!

  4. Bruce Berls Says:
    September 16th, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Isn’t it funny that this is so deeply hidden? Glad you tracked it down.

  5. MagicBob Says:
    October 30th, 2011 at 12:14 pm

    Thanks. I remembered there was a way, butfor the life of me I could remember how to do it.

  6. Bruce Berls Says:
    October 30th, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    I always have to look it up too. Glad you found this.

  7. Tom Clark Says:
    November 7th, 2011 at 7:27 am

    Hmm, for some reason this didn’t work. I’ve done all the steps twice, and it stays fn,ln format. I had everything working fine until my blackberry died and Verizon recommended an andriod phone (bad mistake). Among other things, that stupid phone reorganized my address book to the fn,ln format. So now what should I do? I have over 800 contacts, and don’t want to have to reenter them all…

  8. Bruce Berls Says:
    November 8th, 2011 at 1:37 am

    Unusual things happen when contacts go through a phone. I have odd things added to the notes field in my Outlook contacts that seems to be the result of something done by the phone. When the phone is also syncing with another source of contacts (Google address book or the like), many weird things can happen. I’m not sure it’s just an Android problem.

    My sorting order is muddled now too. I’ve dealt with it by giving up on scrolling for names – I do searches for names on the phone and in Outlook. it’s faster once you get used to it.

  9. eugene schoonen Says:
    February 14th, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    Thanks for the instructions – they worked like a dream.

    Changing the sort from FN to LN should be straightforward. There was reason why hard-copy phone books were sorted by last name. Theoretically, everyone in a phone book could have the same first name – wouldn’t that be fun!

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