Xobni for Microsoft Outlook
Richard from Windows Observer sent me a download link for Xobni, a plugin for Microsoft Outlook that extends the functionality tremendously.
I'm not using Microsoft Outlook anymore since I started using Thunderbird and quit my day job where they forced me to use it. I still think that this an interesting plugin that should be mentioned here at Ghacks.
Xobni for Microsoft Outlook
Xobni adds lots of functions to the Outlook sidebar, all of them are contact related. You see statistics about each contact, when and how often he send you mails, phone numbers found in signatures and mail bodies, people connected to that person, details about those people, a conversation history and quick access to email attachments of that person.
The free version of Xobni makes the following features available:
- Add profile photos to people that email you
- Organize email and contact information by person
- Search by first or last name, or company
- Retrieve information about contacts from LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook
The pro version on top of that adds the following feature set:
- Add contacts to Outlook and BlackBerry
- Information by person are accessible when composing emails
- Advanced search filters
- Connect all contacts across email accounts and devices such as Gmail, Android, Outlook or iPhone
It is currently in closed Beta but Richard has some invites that he is giving away so check out his blog and the article if you are interested in this Beta. It is also possible to leave your email address and the developers will contact you once you have been accepted into the Beta.
I'm not sure if I receive invites as well but if I do I let you know asap.
Update: The professional version of Xobni is a subscription based service that you pay monthly, the free version is completely free and without charges.
Update 2: Yahoo acquired Xobni in 2013. The products and website of the service were shut down shortly thereafter.

You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!