Issue/Question
- The global address book in my Outlook client is out of date
Environment
- MCC owned Computer
- Windows
- On-campus
Resolution
The Outlook E-mail client when running in cached mode (as most machines on campus should be) may take up to 24 hours to show changes to the Global Address List (GAL). The cached exchange mode significantly speeds up the user experience and should not be disabled as a workaround to this problem.
The update delay is related to the generation and distribution of the Microsoft Exchange Offline Address Book. The Offline Address Book is created once a day and the Outlook client will check for updates once every 24 hours. This process was designed so that Outlook could run on a computer or laptop while not being connected to the network and still resolve the address book entries to queue the sending of e-mails in the outbox folder. When Outlook is configured in Cached mode operation this offline copy of the address book is utilized as the default way to lookup addresses. However, if the change has not yet been applied to the offline address book it may not contain the e-mail address or distribution list you are trying to find.
If you need to send a message immediately to a recently added or changed contact that is not showing up in your Outlook Address Book you can find them using the Outlook web client.