Linking phone to PC creates duplicate contacts

If they are orphaned which are the reason many people ends up here on this thread, the fix is not that easy. Then they only show on the Outlook web app on outlook.com, and could not be easily removed with syncing to Outlook desktop and deleted from there. They are orphaned and only shows on the web app, still causing sync issues.

Just a quick update to those that seem to have resolved the issue as per the previous replies:

I too used the solution to delete 'Contacts, Link to Windows' on the Desktop Outlook Client, and yes that has appeared to delete all the contacts, and the category from the Desktop Client, AND my phone, AND looking at contacts on Outlook.com in a browser, in mobile site view (No contacts showing under People). :)

However, my duplicate contacts unfortunately do still remain when viewed on a Desktop (Edge) in the Outlook.com Web client or on a mobile browser, in Desktop Site View (Mobile view shows as empty!). These contacts are therefore orphaned just for the web client - they don't show up any more in the Desktop client or on my phone, which may seem like the problem is fixed for those that don't use Outlook.com directly, but for me at least, they are still stuck there!

I urge people to check Outlook.com directly to see if all traces of the contacts have genuinely gone (congrats to those that have!), or if anyone else is stuck like me, with these orphaned contacts which I am now having to delete manually a few each day only viewable on the web client (20,000 to go...but 3000 less than last week!) :(

What a crazy few days its been. 20k plus contacts, it felt so awesome to be popular. Then it turned into the clone wars...........

I turned off the contacts sync in link and it seems to have resolved the issue.

I feel bad for all of the bandwidth used to create and update all of those contacts over and over and over.

GG Microsoft L2QA

Big thanks to the rest of you that spoke up by posting something!

Same problem, steps for my resolution:

• Android phone: Settings -> Apps -> Link to Windows -> Permissions -> Turn off "Contacts" (slider color changes from blue to grey)
• Desktop PC: Open Outlook desktop app -> Contacts -> under My Contacts in the left pane, right click "Contacts - Link to Windows" and select delete

Duplicates removed, original contacts good, phone removed all duplicate contacts in a few minutes immediately thereafter. Problem resolved.

How this passed Microsoft's QA is puzzling.

@jtcolumbo I'd advice you to select this one above as the true answer. It gets the job done and it's easy to replicate, even for common end users. Someone else was posting a script which is, even if it works, one of the worst answers ever. Make sure people looking for this type of posts see this easier solution first.

Same problem, steps for my resolution:

• Android phone: Settings -> Apps -> Link to Windows -> Permissions -> Turn off "Contacts" (slider color changes from blue to grey)
• Desktop PC: Open Outlook desktop app -> Contacts -> under My Contacts in the left pane, right click "Contacts - Link to Windows" and select delete

Duplicates removed, original contacts good, phone removed all duplicate contacts in a few minutes immediately thereafter. Problem resolved.

How this passed Microsoft's QA is puzzling.

17Apr2023 update: Considering the volume of issues everyone has posted, I poked around a bit more and discovered that setting a synchronization filter helped a lot - like 0 (zero) contacts in the "<name> Galaxy S8 (contacts synced by Link to Windows)" file and my correct quantity of (no duplicate) Contacts while Phone Link appears to work well. My steps: Open Outlook desktop. Click on Contacts to display my regular/normal list of contacts in the Contacts file plus the file entitled "<name> Galaxy S8 (contacts synced by Link to Windows)", Right click the Link to Windows file. Select Properties, then the Synchronization tab, then Filter. Add a filter. In my case, I tried two different filters with the same result of zero contacts in the "Link to Windows" file: 1) Enter my last name in the Search for the word(s) field, then Apply; or, 2) Click on "More Choices", then enter a criterion that will exclude all contacts. The result in both cases were zero contacts in the "Link to Windows" file, no unusual behavior with the rest of my contacts and no duplicates. Note that I did not check Outlook web yet.