Hey there, let’s discuss about the topic how to fix Shared Calendar Issues in Classic Outlook for GAL Contacts. Classic Outlook refers to the usual desktop version of Microsoft Outlook. Classic Outlook offers features such as managing PST files, supporting various types of add-ins, organizing folders in detail, and working deeply with Exchange Server, SharePoint, and other tools.
Classic Outlook is very popular in businesses because of its reliability, works offline with Cached Exchange Mode, and everyone knows how to use it. But Microsoft is slowly migrating towards the cloud-based ‘New Outlook‘ for easier workflows and modern collaboration tools.
Here comes a problem with the calendar, if you use Classic Outlook on your desktop in online mode and try to open a shared calendar that belongs to someone from your Global Address List (GAL), instead of displaying the calendar, Outlook show an error message saying could not be updated.
Here we are going to find out the issues that occurred in Classic Outlook, If we go to the calendar and try to add a contact from our address book, It adds the calendar, but then we get an error message. Users are facing trouble when trying to open a shared calendar that is associated with a contact from the Global Address List.
Table of Contents
How Can We Share a Calendar In Outlook?
To share a Calendar in Outlook, Right-click your calendar > Sharing Permissions > Add users and set access levels (Editor, Reviewer, etc.)
How to Fix Shared Calendar Issues in Classic Outlook for GAL Contacts
As we mentioned above, if we are unable to open a shared calendar linked to a Global Address List (GAL) contact in Classic Outlook, this issue has been escalated to the service team for contacts for investigation by the Outlook team.
- Global Issue Impacting Outlook 2016 MSI Users in January 2025
- How to Fix Calendar Time Selection Issue in Outlook When Selecting Multiple Calendars and Timeslots
- Outlook for Mac Email Recall Tips for Resending and Fixing Email Errors
Workaround for the Issue
Microsoft didn’t offer a good workaround for this, but they are giving some suggestions. They suggested, to work around the issue, you can add the calendar from the GAL rather than the contact. We can also try these troubleshooting steps –
| Verify Calendar Permissions | Recreate the GAL Contact Manually |
|---|---|
| In Classic Outlook, verify via Calendar Tab > Share Calendar > Select User > Set Permissions | Classic Outlook sometimes fails to synchronize GAL contacts properly, so delete the existing GAL-derived contact manually |
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Resources
Classic Outlook cannot open a shared calendar with a contact created from the Global Address List
Author
Anoop C Nair has been Microsoft MVP for 10 consecutive years from 2015 onwards. He is a Workplace Solution Architect with more than 22+ years of experience in Workplace technologies. He is a Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group Community leader. His primary focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM and Intune. He writes about technologies like Intune, SCCM, Windows, Cloud PC, Windows, Entra, Microsoft Security, Career, etc.