Friday, January 6, 2012

Add Global Address List (GAL) to Contacts in Outlook 2010

I had been trying to find a way to add all of my Contacts, Groups, etc. from our company's Global Address List (GAL) to my local Outlook Contacts. That way, whenever I would need to send an email it would be easy to resolve/add everyone's name in the "To:" line. I finally achieved this by completing the following steps:

1. Open Outlook 2010.
2. Click "New" to open a new email.
3. Click "Address Book".
4. Select "Global Address List" in the dropdown list under the Address Book heading.
5. Click the first entry and hold down the Shift button.
6. Scroll to the bottom of your GAL and select the last entry.
7. Finally, right-click anywhere in the entries list and select "Add to Contacts". Depending on the number of Contacts in your GAL, this may take a minute or two.

Then, you're all set. The GAL has been added to your Contacts in Outlook. You can now easily begin typing a person's name, group, whatever and you will be able to quickly add exactly who you need to the email. Enjoy!
Posted by wikky at 12:19 PM
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17 comments:

  1. Huynh thi bich thaoJuly 28, 2012 at 8:46 AM

    I really did it. Thanks so much, I had enjoy it. Thank you so much.


    htb.thao@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. wikkyAugust 14, 2012 at 4:57 PM

      You're very welcome! Glad I could help!

      Delete
    2. Jackie Co KadDecember 2, 2017 at 2:16 AM

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      Delete
  2. Brett KayeFebruary 1, 2013 at 4:06 PM

    Thank you! Very easy to follow and helped me a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  3. epmApril 17, 2013 at 6:49 AM

    Hi Wikky.

    Thanks for that. Now, do you know how to do the reverse - i.e Add contacts to you Global Address List? Your instructions above do not work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. wikkyAugust 7, 2013 at 4:13 PM

      I believe this pertains to Active Directory accounts which either you or your system administrator will need to create in order to make them accessible through Outlook.

      Delete
  4. BrettAugust 5, 2013 at 8:09 PM

    In the Address Book drop-down menu, my options are "Outlook Address Book" and "Contacts." No "Global Address List." Now what? :(

    ReplyDelete
  5. wikkyAugust 7, 2013 at 4:19 PM

    Are you using Oulook 2010? You should click New for a new email and then click the "To:" button. From this window, you should see a dropdown to select the GAL

    ReplyDelete
  6. dyasnyOctober 11, 2013 at 4:06 PM

    This will only work for the current GAL, what happens when more users are added, or users are removed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JamesNovember 15, 2013 at 6:56 AM

      My worry too, I've a lot of uses asking for this functionality but I am hesitant to point them in this direction as when changes are made they'll have to repeat the process.

      Delete
    2. wikkyNovember 20, 2013 at 2:16 PM

      You are correct. This essentially only does a "one time" export from the GAL. Any additions/removals would require a repeat of the steps. This solution is really to just get you a near full export of all users so that you don't always have to go searching.

      Delete
  7. UnknownOctober 24, 2013 at 2:42 AM

    U are awesome and thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownApril 15, 2014 at 5:33 AM

    One of the real benefits of this is that it will copy contacts to your smartphone so you will knoe who is calling you from work as all numbers will be in your contacts.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousMay 4, 2014 at 3:08 AM

    hey helped me a lot... was wondering since many months... thank you

    ReplyDelete
  10. podnuhDecember 24, 2014 at 1:18 PM

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  11. HugoNovember 5, 2015 at 7:47 AM

    Does anyone know how to do this when there are 50 000 contacts. If I scroll more than say 'n 100 lines and do the shift click thing I get an error. Definitely don't want to repeat the process 500 times.

    ReplyDelete
  12. UnknownFebruary 27, 2018 at 5:05 AM

    Hi,

    Can we do this from Exchange server console 2010. ?
    I want to move my GAL to outlook contacts automatically for some of my HOD's

    Thanks,
    Zaman

    ReplyDelete

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