Sorting Contacts by Order in your Address Book

The display order of the Address Book (which shows up when pressing the “To:” button when creating a new email) can be controlled separately from how your contacts are stored in the Contacts folder. It will require an additional change to your Address Book settings to change the display of the names to First Last.

Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013

Go to File-> Info-> Account Settings-> Account Settings…-> Address Books-> Outlook Address Book-> button Change…

Changing the sorting order of the Address Book.

Show names by

The “File As (Last, First)” sorts the Address Book based on the “File As” field for that given contact. While the default is “Last, First”, you can change this in Outlook:

Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007

Tools-> Options…-> tab Preferences-> button Contact Options…-> option: Default “Full Name” order

Outlook 2010

File-> Options-> Contacts-> option: Default “Full Name” order

Outlook 2013

File-> Options-> People-> option: Default “Full Name” order