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How to Merge Duplicate Contacts in Outlook Quickly?

  Ashwani Tiwari
Written By Ashwani Tiwari
Anuraag Singh
Approved By Anuraag Singh
Modified On December 4th, 2025
Reading Time 7 Min Read

If you’ve found duplicate contacts in the Outlook address book, but you can’t put them in trash. No problem, in this article, we’ll share with you how to merge Outlook contacts using both seamless manual and automated methods to clean up your contact list and to get Outlook’s best performance. Let’s walk through the article.

What You’ll Learn Hide
  1. Why Is There a Need to Outlook Merge Duplicate Contacts?
  2. What Causes Duplicate Contacts in Outlook?
  3. 4 Best Methods Used to Combine Duplicate Contacts in Outlook
  4. How to Merge Contacts on Outlook: Step-by-Step
  5. Conclusion
  6. FAQs on How to Combine Contacts in Outlook

Duplicate contacts in Outlook can cause chaos and clutter your address book, which can be confusing while emailing, resulting in a waste of both time & effort. These duplicates may occur due to a sync error, import, or simply adding the contact a second time. Regardless of the cause, you need to know how to merge contacts on Outlook into one single contact via a reliable & effective tool.

Instant Solution: How to Merge Outlook Contacts?

To merge duplicate Outlook contacts quickly in no time you should follow these steps:

  1. Download a Professional tool like SysTools PST Merge Software.
  2. You can use Outlook built-in feature, which allows Outlook merge contacts.
  3. Or, try Export/Import method for Outlook combine contacts.

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Why Is There a Need to Merge Outlook Duplicate Contacts?

  1. Avoid Confusion and Miscommunication

    2. If you’re sending email messages, there is a chance that you could make a mistake if you want to send someone, but the mail goes to someone else, as it has a similar name. There is a need to merge duplicate Outlook contacts, which can prevent confusion and misunderstanding.

  2. Improve Search Efficiency

    3. If you’re looking for a contact, there may be multiple entries for the same contact, which can make it difficult to find or identify the real one. If you have merged your records and taken away duplicate contacts, you can find what you are looking for faster.

  3. Enhance Professionalism

    4. Multiple duplicate contacts make Outlook unprofessional. When you merge Outlook contacts, your address book or contacts list becomes organised and well-structured, which can be easily accessible.

  4. Prevent Syncing Errors

    5. When syncing Outlook with devices or third-party applications (Gmail and iCloud), duplicate contacts can result in synchronisation issues or worse–data corruption across platforms.

  5. Reduce Mailbox Clutter

    6. Like getting rid of spam or old emails, merging duplicate Outlook contacts reduces clutter and improves overall organisation in your mailbox and address book.

  6. Save Time and Boost Productivity

    7. Merge Outlook Contacts rather than wasting time filtering duplicates or fixing them, which can save time and also boost Outlook’s performance.

What Causes Duplicate Contacts in Outlook?

Before we get into methods, it’s important to understand why Outlook have duplicates and why there is a need to merge them. So, here are the common reasons explained below:

  • Importing contacts multiple times

When a user is importing any PST/OST file multiple times without choosing the ‘do not import duplicates’ option, Outlook generates duplicate contacts.

  • Syncing Outlook with multiple devices or third-party apps

Connecting Outlook with mobile phones, tablets or any third-party providers like iCloud or CRM tools, can cause sync errors as a result of duplicate contacts which get created.

  • Manual creation of similar contact entries

Sometimes, users don’t know about already existing contacts, as there may be a little difference in their emails or names, but Outlook will consider them to be separate contacts.

  • Improper Outlook rules or data migration

When migrating contacts in Outlook from an outdated version or using the wrong Outlook rules, it can easily create duplicate entries automatically.

4 Best Methods Used to Combine Duplicate Contacts in Outlook

In this section, we’ll know how to merge duplicate contacts in Outlook using 4 best & effective methods, which are given below with explantion.

  1. Use Outlook’s Built-in Merge Feature
  2. Export, Clean, and Re-import Contacts
  3. Merge Contacts Using the People Pane
  4. Using a Professional Tool

Let’s discuss them quickly:

Method 1: Use Outlook’s Built-in Merge Feature

This method allows users to merge duplicate Outlook contacts manually by combining their information.
Steps to use:

  1. Open Contacts tab in Outlook.
  2. Select all Duplicate contacts.
  3. Open one of the contacts and drag the duplicate onto it.
  4. Outlook will ask if you want to merge the contact details.
Pros:

  • Easy for a small number of duplicate lists.
  • No installation of any software is required.
Cons:

  • Time-consuming for larger address books.
  • If names are slightly different, it is easy to miss duplicates.

Pro Tip: You can also take an action like if you want to delete the merged duplicate contacts, you should use SysTools Outlook Duplicate Remover which can help to identify and remove duplicate contacts in outlook‘s list.

Method 2: Export, Clean, and Re-import Contacts

This is a more technical way to manually merge contacts in Outlook using Excel.
Steps to use:

  1. Navigate to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
  2. Export your contacts to a CSV file.
  3. Open the .csv file in Excel and either manually merge duplicate rows.
  4. Save the file, and re-import it to your Outlook contacts.
Pros:

  • More control of your data
  • It’s great for bulk merging or combining.

Cons:

  • It needs some technical knowledge to operate Excel.
  • Easy to create formatting errors.

Method 3: Merge Contacts Using the People Pane

The People Pane is another way to merge Outlook contacts.
Steps to use:

  1. Open an email from the contact.
  2. In the People Pane, click on Contact’s name.
  3. If there are duplicates, Outlook may display linked contacts that can be merged.
Pros:

  • Easy to use when looking at contacts in email.
  • Helpful for finding “Hidden” duplicates.
Cons:

  • It may not be accurate.
  • Not available in all versions of Outlook.

Note: As these manual methods have their limitations, to prevent these consequences to merge Outlook contacts. You should opt for the automatic method to save time and avoid the risk of loss of data.

Method 4: Use an Advanced Tool to Combine Contacts in Outlook

If you’re working with many thousands of duplicate contacts, we suggest using SysTools Outlook Merging Software, which allows you to merge similar contacts in Outlook very easily and efficiently. This automated tool can merge contacts on Outlook without any risk of losing data. This software helps you to manage multiple PST files in Outlook by combining and merging duplicate entries. Let’s take a look at its steps to get to know it more easily.

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How to Merge Contacts in Outlook: Step-by-Step

  1. Download and launch the software on your device.

    2. launch

  2. Click on Add File & Folder option to add a PST file.

    3. add

  3. Click Next, then select Merge tab.

    4. next

  4. Choose Merge in New PST, an Existing File or an Outlook Profile option.

    5. advanced

  5. In Select Item Types, select Contacts for Outlook combine contacts.

    6. items

  6. Tick the Skip Duplicate Items checkbox and save Specific Criteria.

    7. skip

  7. Click OK to combine contacts in Outlook PST file successfully.

    8. ok

Read Also: How to Merge Calendars in Outlook?

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve discussed how Outlook merge duplicate contacts with both manual and automatic methods effectively. For large-sized data, which is experiencing ongoing synchronization issues, we would suggest that you go for the aforementioned tool rather than manual methods, as it can do its work very easily, quickly, and safely. Keep your Outlook address book clean for effective performance and communication as well.

FAQs on Merge Outlook Contacts

Q.1 Can I Restore Deleted Contacts?

A. You can if you’ve taken a backup before merging duplicate contacts.

Q.2 How Do You Merge Contacts in Outlook?

A. You can follow these steps to Outlook merge contacts:

  1. Open Outlook
  2. Choose the Google Account where you want to merge Outlook contacts.
  3. Click on Fix & Manage > Merge & Fix.
  4. Press Merge Duplicates.

Q.3 How to Combine Outlook Contacts in a Few Steps Using an Automated Tool?

A. To combine contacts in Outlook using dedicated software designed by SysTools. You can follow these steps:

  1. Install the Aforementioned utility.
  2. Select the Merge option to combine contacts in Outlook.
  3. Choose Advanced options like New PST, Outlook Profile & Existing PST File.
  4. Tap on Next button to Outlook combine contacts.