Email, Messaging, & Video Calls Email How to Build a Windows Mail Address Book Automatically Take a hands-off approach to populating your Contacts by Heinz Tschabitscher Writer A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997. our editorial process Heinz Tschabitscher Updated on September 26, 2020 Email Yahoo! Mail Gmail Tweet Share Email When you reply to somebody via email, Windows Mail can automatically add the recipient to your address book. It's an easy way to build a comprehensive list of contacts. Build Your Windows Mail Address Book Automatically To have people to whom you reply added to your Windows Mail Contact list automatically, access the People app, where Windows Mail stores all its contact information. Open Windows Mail and select the Switch to People icon to open the People app on the lower-left side of the window next to the Switch to Mail and Switch to Calendar icons. Select the Settings gear icon. Under Contact List Display, slide the toggle for Automatically add contacts that you have communicated with recently to On. Choose the sort orders by which you want to sort your contact list and display names. Select Filter Contact List if you wish to apply any filters, such as hiding contacts without phone numbers or showing contacts from Skype. Close People when you finish. Note that recipients are not added to your contacts when you start a new message and address it manually. The original senders are turned into address book contacts only when you reply. Add a Contact to Windows Mail Manually If you want to add a contact without sending or replying to an email, you can do so through the People app. Open Windows Mail and select the Switch to People icon to open the People app on the lower-left side of the window next to the Switch to Mail and Switch to Calendar icons. Select the + icon at the top of the window. In the New Live Contact section, enter the information for the contact and select Save. Make Windows Mail the Default in Windows 10 Windows 10 ships with Windows Mail, but it might not be your default email program. To change the default to Windows Mail: Select the Start button. Type Default app settings. In the Web Browser section, select the current browser and then select Windows Mail. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up. Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit