How do I change the default folder for saving contacts in Outlook?

[soho1]

I have happily used Outlook for several years for POP accounts. My recent addition of an Exchange account has hijacked several default behaviors that I was used to. For one, contacts are now saved by default in the exchange related contact folder instead of the folder that is associated with my primary POP account. How do I reconfigure Outlook to save contacts to my preferred folder, so that I don't have to constantly move the new contacts after they are saved? I do not want this information on the exchange account. This bad behaviour occurs no matter what email account is read, from which I am saving the contact info.

To reproduce the problem: Open a message in the POP email, right click on the FROM email address, choose Add to Contacts from the menu, find the contact stored in the exchange contact folder instead of the contact folder for the POP account (the folder that Outlook USED to save to,prior to adding the exchange account).

Work around: (annoying the first few times, mentally unhealthy after more than a few) Save the contact, then manually move it to the correct folder.

I am looking for a solution in Outlook 2010 under Windows 7 Pro.

 

[EveningStarNM]

I realize that this is an old thread, but I thought that I'd post an answer. As far as I have been able to find out (and I've spent weeks looking for an answer), it is not possible to change the default Contacts folder. The default contacts folder will always be the one in the .pst or .ost file which contains your default Inbox. If you go to Properties for that Contacts folder, you cannot remove the checkmark from "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book" on the Outlook Address Book tab.

The best that we can hope to do is to change the order in which our various contacts folders are shown when we click the Contacts icon in Outlook's navigation pane, and change which contact list will be shown first in Outlook's Address Book (via the Address Book icon on the Home ribbon). To change the order in which contacts folders are shown, follow this procedure:

1. Select the Contacts icon in the navigation pane.
2. Under My Contacts, right-click the folder that you want to move to the top (or bottom) of the list and then click "Move Up" (or "Move Down").

NOTE: Unfortunately, you cannot remove any Contacts folders from any of your open .pst or .ost files from this list. Ideally, we would want to remove them, but we can't.
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To change which contact list is shown first in the Outlook Address Book, follow this procedure:

1. Click the Tools menu (Outlook 2007) or the Home tab (Outlook 2010 / 2013) and then click Address Book to open the address book.
2. In the address book, click the Tools menu and then click Options to load the addressing options.
3. For Outlook 2007, click the drop-down arrow next to Show this address list first. For Outlook 2010 / 2013, select Start with contact folders or select Custom and rearrange the order of contacts as required.
4. Use the pull-down menu to select the contact list that you want displayed as the default when the address book is opened.
5. Click OK.

IMPORTANT: When you open Contacts the first time after starting Outlook, and possibly after that, the default Contacts list will be shown first, NOT the one that you moved to the top of the list. This is because it is not actually possible to change the default Contacts list unless you change the location of the default Inbox to another .pst or .ost file. However, if you delete all of the contacts in the default folder, seeing the empty list will remind you that you have to click on the folder that you moved to the top of the list.