Lost Outlook Groups?, after compacting Outlook files...

[ross gooding]

I recently compacted my Outlook email files, and upon restarting, most of my groups and contacts in those groups are gone. The only remaining group in "Contacts". How can I get my groups and contacts back? I've copied my pst files to a backup Harddrive not long ago, which may be an option?

 

[Ben M. Schorr [MVP]]

When you say "groups" did you have multiple PST files each with one or more Contacts folders? If you do File | Open | Outlook Data File do you see other PST files listed that aren't currently open?

 

[ross gooding]

Ben, thank you for your timely reply. I had multiple groups of contacts within a single PST. I still see them on my Iphone when I use it. Under File/Open/Outlook Data files I see a "personal" and "archive"-- personal is the default and one i'm using--which previously had all my other contacts within the groups folders--and is about 3 Gig's in size. I tried my archive pst==no change. I'm going to check my recycle bin as I remember seeing some outlook files there. I'd appreciate any advice on re-importing the contacts from the i-phone, or I suppose I could re-load the pst file I believe is saved on my back-up hard drive. Your thoughts?

Thanks a ton. Ross