How to Fix Bad/Old Data in Your Outlook Global Address List (GAL) in Outlook for Windows
The Global Address List (GAL) is an address book maintained on the e-mail server containing contacts for everyone in the Pomona Office365 community. It is updated frequently as new accounts and e-mail addresses are created. Outlook automatically updates itself so you normally do not have to worry about maintaining this address book yourself. If you discover old/outdated information in your Global Address List, please wait at least 8 hours for Outlook to pull new information into any cached versions of your Global Address List on your computer.
If the old data persists, you may need to force Outlook to update or rebuild the Offline Global Address List. These instructions pertain only to Outlook for Windows:
- Click on the File ribbon in the upper left-hand corner.
- Choose Account Settings and select Download Address Book...
- Make sure that Download changes since last Send/Receive is checked, choose \Offline Global Address List then click OK
- This can take some time, depending on how much data needs to be updated.
If you are still seeing bad data in the Global Address List after running the steps above, return to File > Account Settings > Download Address Book and uncheck the Download Changes since last SendReceive box, choose \Offline Global Address List and click OK. This will force Outlook to download a new full copy of the Global Address List.