Have you ever wondered how to change the default address book in Outlook when you are using Exchange. If you have ever sent an email and tried to find your contacts using the To: button you know that by default the Exchange Global Address Book is the first source of contacts. What a pain.

I always find it difficult to locate where to change the default so I thought I would post it in case you are looking. I know I will come back to this post because even after having found it, I still can’t remember how to do it. It is just one of those things that has never been intuitive.

Here are the steps:

1. From Outlook 2010.
2. Select Contacts in the navigation pane,
3. Ensure the Home tab is selected.
4. Select Address Book from the ribbon.
5. 
6. The Address Book: Global Address List windows will open
   1. Select the Tools Menu
   2. Select Options
   3. 
   4. The Addressing Window will open
      1. Choose Start with contact folders
      2. Select OK
      3. 
   5. Close the Address Book: Global Address List  window

From now on when you click the To: button your default address list will be the outlook contacts folder. If you don’t remember how to do it in the future, remember you found it here. I know I will be back to this post the next time I have to do this