Lost Contacts after creating a new Outlook email account

Hello Leonor Ammundsen,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum. 

I’m sorry for the inconvenience this issue is causing. For now, please try following the steps provided by Q&A Assist (check People/Contacts, Deleted/Recover deleted, any other Contacts folders, etc.).

If the issue still isn’t resolved after completing those steps, or if you run into any difficulty at a specific step (for example, you don’t see an option or you’re unable to restore anything), please reply back and I’ll help further based on what you find.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

Follow these steps to troubleshoot and try to recover the missing contacts and get additional support:

1. Check for contacts in another Contacts folder
   • In Outlook on the web/Outlook.com, go to People (Contacts).
   • Look carefully for more than one folder named Contacts or a localized equivalent (for example, a second Contacts folder created during migration or upgrade).
   • Open each Contacts folder and see whether the missing contacts are stored in the “other” Contacts folder.
   • If the contacts are in the wrong Contacts folder, move them into the main Contacts folder so Outlook and other apps can see them. In Outlook desktop, the “old” folder typically shows a standard folder icon, and the “real” Contacts folder shows a contact-card icon; drag contacts from the old folder into the new one.
2. Check if contacts were deleted
   • In Outlook.com / new Outlook, go to People.
   • Open the Deleted folder and look for the missing contacts or contact lists.
   • If found, right‑click and choose Restore.
   • If not found there, in the Deleted folder select Recover deleted (or similar option) to open the Recoverable items list.
   • Select the contacts to restore and choose Restore. They will be returned to their original folder when possible, or to the default Contacts folder if the original no longer exists.
3. If contacts were imported from a file and are incomplete
   • If a .csv file was used to import contacts into the new account, open that .csv file in Excel and verify that all contact information is present.
   • Ensure the first row still contains the original column headings.
   • Save the file again as .csv (answer Yes to all prompts about keeping the format).
   • Re‑import the .csv into Outlook and, when prompted about duplicates, choose Replace duplicates with items imported.
4. If contacts are missing after Hotmail → Outlook.com migration
   • If this started after being moved from Hotmail to Outlook.com, request investigation by Microsoft:
     1. Sign in to Outlook.com.
     2. In the upper‑right corner, select ? and then Feedback.
     3. Select Give Feedback.
     4. Describe that contacts disappeared after a new account was created/after migration.
     5. Select Next, then Skip and send message.
   • The issue will be assigned to an engineer who can investigate and attempt to move contacts from the old data to the current Outlook.com account.
5. Get additional help from Microsoft support
   • For Outlook.com/Outlook on the web account and sync issues, use the official support channel at Microsoft support.
   • Choose Outlook/Outlook.com and follow the prompts for account and contacts problems; depending on region, chat or callback options may be available.

If the contacts are not in any Contacts/Deleted/Recoverable folder and were not preserved in a backup (.pst or .csv), direct recovery may not be possible, so contacting Microsoft via Feedback and Support is essential.

References:

• Contacts folder empty and contacts are in a different folder in Outlook for Microsoft 365
• Restore or recover a deleted contact in Outlook
• Fix problems importing contacts to Outlook
• Can't sync calendar and contacts with my phone or tablet