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During MS Outlook installation, a default Outlook Address Book is generated, unifying all Outlook Contacts folders. However, it’s important to understand that the Outlook Address Book isn’t a traditional physical address book. Instead, it operates as a virtual tool, offering a view of your Contacts folder without storing it as a separate file from your data store.
To streamline contact folder usage in a mailbox, Outlook employs a Personal Address Book (PAB). This PAB can hold contact details and email addresses not found in your Outlook Address Book.
Nonetheless, the Personal Address Book (PAB) does generate a separate file on your computer’s hard disk drive. It’s advisable to ensure that this address book is included in your backup routine. To confirm its backup, always incorporate any file with a .PAB extension into your backup process.
Please Note:You’ll require the path information mentioned in Step 4 to locate the PAB file for backup, copying, or transferring contacts to another computer.
Step 1: Close all E-mail programs and launch Microsoft Windows Explorer.
Step 2: Now, follow the path or expand folders as mentioned in Step 4 of Identify the PAB file used by your e-mail profile to locate the PAB file.
Step 3: Now, copy the PAB file to the removable storage device, and use the storage drive to copy the PAB file to another computer.
Additionally, make sure to record the PAB file’s path on the other computer.
Say for instance, if you copy the PAB file named Mailbox.pab to a folder that is named Address Book on drive C, the path of the address book is as follows: C:\Address Book\Mailbox.pab
Alternatively, if both the source and destination computers are on the same network, you can easily copy the PAB file from the source computer to another computer through a network share
Please Note: You can save the PAB file in any folder on the destination computer if you remember the location.
You can create a separate “Backup Contacts” PST file, if you have kept all the contacts in the Contacts folder and your preferred choice is to back up your contacts only.
Note: Now, repeat Step 3 & 4 for all contact folders.
Close Outlook and copy the new “Contacts Backup” PST file to your backup location.
If you’ve lost Outlook contacts from your profile and are seeking a way to recover them, consider downloading the free evaluation version of Outlook PST Repair software. This tool can repair Outlook PST files and retrieve various data, including contacts, calendars, emails, events, properties, attachments, Unicode characters, images, and even deleted emails. It’s a comprehensive solution for recovering lost data from MS Outlook PST files.
Just for your information, Global Address Lists (GAL) and LDAP lists are stored on connected mail servers or directory servers. This means that even if you forget to back up your address list, they remain accessible. These lists are consistently available and unaffected even if you reinstall your computer’s operating system. You can easily reconnect to the server to access the address list.