Manually Updating the Global Address Book

The Global Address List (GAL) is the institutional contact directory in Outlook that contains all faculty, staff, and other members of the William James College community.

In some cases, Outlook may display a message indicating that your Global Address List is outdated or offline. Although Outlook normally updates the GAL automatically, the local copy stored on your computer can occasionally become out of sync with the server.

If this occurs, you can manually download the latest version of the Global Address List by following the steps below.

Note: This issue only affects the desktop version of Outlook. The web version of Outlook always accesses the current directory directly from Microsoft 365 and will not display outdated or offline GAL messages.

1. In the Outlook desktop app, click File in the top-left corner of your screen.

2. Click Account Settings.

3. Click Download Address Book.

4. In the pop-up window, make sure the Download changes since last Send/Receive checkbox is checked off.

5. Click the OK button.

6. Wait for the process to complete. Once it’s finished, you’re done — your Outlook Global Address List is now up to date!