Manually downloading a copy of the Offline Address Book.

Scenario: You expect to see a user in the Offline Address Book, but you cannot find that user. The Offline Address Book is used when Outlook is in Cached mode.


Solutions:  Outlook is supposed to download the offline address book every 24 hours. Additions/Modifications made to users in the address book may not be seen by someone who is using an older version of the offline address book. We have seen a restart of the computer force Outlook to download it if Outlook has not updated for a while, but you can attempt to manually download a new copy of the Offline Address Book.

Outlook 2010/2013 

1. Click the Send/Receive Tab, click Send/Receive Groups, Select Download Address book.
2. Uncheck the box next to Download changes since last Send/Receive. In the Information to download section, select Full Details and in the Address Book section, choose \Global Address List. click OK.
3. The offline address book will start to download. A status window will open to indicate that the download is in progress and will close automatically when the download is complete.

Outlook 2007 

1. Click on Tools, highlight Send/Receive, select Download Address Book.
2. Uncheck the box next to Download changes since last Send/Receive. In the Information to download section, select Full Details and in the Address Book section, choose \Global Address List. Click OK.
3. The offline address book will start to download. A status window will open to indicate that the download is in progress and will close automatically when the download is complete.


Outlook 2011 on OSX

1.Fully exit Outlook 2011
2.Remove the ~/Library/Caches/Outlook/Main Identity directory
3.Restart Outlook 2011


If the user is not in the offline address book, verify you can find the user via Outlook Web App.