How to Recover Deleted Contacts in Outlook for Windows

With a tool as efficient as Outlook, you do not have to worry about storing and organizing your contacts- for it does the needful on its own. However, with all those great functionalities, you are also heavily dependent on your Outlook data. If you are not aware of ways to recover outlook contacts, then you are unprepared for the most commonly occurring issue- lost or deleted contacts. This can happen when:

• You accidentally format your PC without any backup
• A virus/Trojan deletes the data on your PC
• A problem while updating Outlook
• Deleting your Outlook account intentionally/accidentally

• Part 1: How to Recover Outlook Contacts from PST Files
• Part 2: How to Recover Deleted Contacts in Outlook

No matter what the issue may be- the bottom line is that you are now left without your Outlook contacts. However, with free email recovery software, you can recover them with ease.

Part 1: How to Recover Outlook Contacts from PST Files

A PST or Personal Storage file, is the folder fie that Microsoft Outlook uses for storing a particular user’s data. A .PST file generally has a 2GB size, and contains all your data including your email, contacts, calendar events as well as other items used by the Outlook software.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is one of the most trusted methods to recover outlook contacts. It repairs corrupted or damaged PST files and recover email and items from repaired PST files. Outlook PST Repair works with MS Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 & 2000.

Steps to Repair PST files and Recover Deleted Contacts

Step 1 With Outlook PST Repair home screen has two options –'Select a corrupt Outlook PST file' and 'Find the PST file.' Let's select the 'Find the PST file' optiton to repair PST files and process to recover outlook contacts.

Step 2 Search the drive location to look in the PST files. Select the PST file to repair which diaplay in the 'Find Results' section.

Step 3 Once the PST file has been selected,click Scan button. After a while, all the repaired PST file email and items folders will be shown in left side bar.

Step 4 Select the contact items from the repaired PST files, and to save a desired location.

Outlook PST Repair tool also supports to recover emails,tasks,and calendar events from PST files with just a few clicks. You are shown a counter for the total emails and contacts recovered. All your deleted data is organized by folders to let you preview and recover the stuff you need. You have the option of previewing the contacts and emails before recovery.

Part 2: How to Recover Deleted Contacts in Outlook

Apart from using the Outlook PST Repair tool, you can recover outlook contacts in Windows by two other ways.

1. Recover a contact that's still in your Deleted Items folder

After you have deleted contacts from Outlook, they are present in the folder marked ‘Deleted Items’. If you are looking to recover an item from there, follow the steps ahead:

Step 1 Go to the email folders list in Outlook, and then select the folder named ‘Deleted Items’.

Step 2Now press CTRL+E or use the column that says ‘Search Deleted Items’ for searching the contacts that you are trying to recover. You can also sort/filter from the Icon column.

Step 3 When you have found the contact that you want, right click on it, select Move. then select Other Folder

Step 4 And select the Contacts folder from the list that appears.

2. Recover Outlook Contacts that's no longer in your Deleted Items folder

If the contact you are trying to recover is not present in the Deleted Items folder, then you can look for it in the folder marked Recoverable Items. To do that, follow the steps ahead:

Step 1 Go to the folder named ‘Deleted Items’, and ensure that the ‘Home’ tab is selected at the top. From this, select the option that says ‘Recover Deleted Items from Server’.

Step 2 For finding a contact in the window that appears, click on the Subject header and all items in the column will be sorted by Subject. Similarly, you can click on the ‘From’ column to sort by the sender names. From here, search for the contacts that you are looking for.

Step 3 From the contacts, select the ones that you are looking to recover, choose ‘Restore Selected Items’ and then click on Ok. All the contacts that are recovered from here will then go to the Deleted Items Folder. From here on, you can follow the steps in the previous method to recover them.

With all these methods, you now know the best ways to recover outlook contacts. You can use the Outlook recovery tool or do it directly from Outlook. No matter what the reason behind losing your Outlook contacts may be- you can be sure that you will recover them with ease!