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outlookoffice-jsoutlook-restapi

Relationship between Outlook JS API and Outlook REST API

I am looking to develop an addin for Outlook using the Office JS API. Reading the API documentation, there are a number of references to making a call to the Outlook REST API to do various things.

As an example, I want to retrieve a list of contacts from the local machine. I have seen posts suggesting I need to make a call to the Outlook REST API, however this doesn't make sense to me. If they are local/offline contacts, why would I need to do that? I feel as though I'm missing some relationship between the two.

A screenshot for the list of contacts I want to retrieve:

enter image description here

Question

Could someone outline how they fit together (if at all)? Is it expected that if I'm going to effectively use this API, I will also need to have my data "online", such that it's available from some REST service?

Solution

  • As the contacts are stored locally it can not be retrieved using REST API. Getting the contacts via Office JS is not possible today. We track Outlook add-in feature requests on our user-voice page. Please add your request there. Feature requests on user-voice are considered, when we go through our planning process.