Importing offline address book ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Betty Williams
  • Start date Start date
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Betty Williams

Can anyone tell me what you need to do in order to import an offline
addres book (.oab) file back into Outlook.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
The OAB is actually six files. You can't import them. If you're having a problem with the OAB, give us your Outlook version and symptoms.
 
The OAB is actually six files. You can't import them. If you're having a problem with the OAB, give us your Outlook version and symptoms.
Click to expand...

My problem is that the laptop I was using was stolen and I'm trying to
recover things. I'm not interested in emails just my contacts in my
address book. I had a backup of various files including the 6 files you
mentioned (assuming they all end in .oab) but don't know how to get
Outlook to read from them. I've tried loading the .pst but that didn't
help. Outlook version is 2002.
 
Outlook can use those files only if you have an Exchange account for the same server in your Outlook mail profile. Do you?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Outlook can use those files only if you have an Exchange account for the same server in your Outlook mail profile. Do you?
Click to expand...

No I don't ... this is unbelievable though .. I just want my email
contacts back .. I regret ever using Outlook .. do you know if any other
email app such as Thunderbird would install from these files?
 
Why is it unbelievable? The .oab files, which are usable only in Outlook, do not contain *your* personal contact data. They contain the data from the Exchange Server at your organization. If you still work there, adding your Exchange mailbox to the mail profile should solve the problem. If you no longer work there, then it might be debatable whether you have the right to use that address information at all.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
But corporations do allow you to save your personal contacts as well. I am in a similar boat. I have the OAB files with me. I had saved my data there and for years I have used the Microsoft Address Book to carry my contact. If, I may have already lost my contacts etc.. - you can bet that I am not using Outlook to save any contacts. Will have to look for other options. I think it would be wise that outlook warns it corporate users that once you leave the company, you are going to lose the contacts... I definitely did not expect this from Microsoft. :mad:
 
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