Why This Happens
If Word, Excel, and your other Office apps open normally but Outlook doesn't, the Office installation itself is fine. The Outlook icon may spin without ever opening, or nothing happens at all when you click it. This is almost always caused by a corrupted Outlook profile, a faulty add-in, or cached data, not a problem with your product key or installation.
Step 1: Run an Online Repair
A Quick Repair usually isn't enough to fix this. Run a full Online Repair instead:
Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps.
Find Microsoft Office in the list and select Modify.
Choose Online Repair (not Quick Repair) and follow the prompts.
Step 2: Create a New Outlook Profile
If Outlook still won't open, the existing profile is likely corrupted. Creating a new one is usually a permanent fix:
Open Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles.
Select Add and create a new profile, following the wizard to add your email account.
Set the new profile as the default under "Always use this profile".
Open Outlook again. It should now start normally.
Creating a new profile does not delete any emails from the server. If your account uses IMAP or Exchange/Microsoft 365, your messages will re-download automatically once the profile is set up.
Step 3: Start Outlook in Safe Mode
If the problem comes back, a third-party add-in may be the cause:
Press Win + R, type outlook /safe, and press Enter.
If Outlook opens normally in Safe Mode, go to File > Options > Add-ins, select COM Add-ins under Manage, and disable them one at a time to find the one causing the issue.
Importing Contacts from Google into Outlook
If you're moving from Gmail and importing a Google Contacts CSV file, Outlook can be strict about its formatting and may throw an error when opening it. Before importing, open the CSV in Microsoft Excel and:
Set the print area to include only the cells that contain your data.
Delete any columns that don't contain data.
Save the file. Outlook should then be able to read and import it without errors.