print friendly version

Questions and answers

2701
How to delete items from your Contacts folders (address books)


This method assumes you are using Outlook 2013, but the procedure is almost identical in Outlook 2010 except for step 1.

  1. In Outlook's Navigation Pane (where your folders are listed), click on the People icon at bottom left:

    Outlook 2013 Contacts icon

    (If you're using Outlook 2010, click on Contacts near the bottom left)

  2. Click on the required contacts folder, in the list of folders under the My Contacts heading on the left.
  3. Select the contact items(s) you want to delete:
    • To select a single unwanted contact from the list on the right, just click on it once.
    • To select a block or range of contacts to delete, click on the first of them, then hold down the Shift key while you click on the last.  This highlights all the items within the selected range.
    • To select a series of individual contacts to delete, hold down the Ctrl key while you click on each one. Each selected item will be highlighted.
  4. Right-click on the highlighted item(s) and select Delete... from the drop-down menu.  The selected items will disappear from the list.

NOTE that the deleted contacts will not be removed completely:  they will instead be moved to your Deleted Items folder, just like deleted items of email, and the Deleted Items folder would need to be emptied or partially emptied for them to disappear completely.

 

Help us to improve this answer

Please suggest an improvement
(login needed, link opens in new window)

Your views are welcome and will help other readers of this page.

Categories

This is question number 2701, which appears in the following categories:

Created by Andy Clews on 14 January 2015 and last updated by Richard Byrom-Colburn on 21 October 2016