Linking phone to PC creates duplicate contacts

A few weeks ago, I first noticed and reported that Phone Link was suddenly failing to display the contact pictures associated with my frequent contacts, using the default icon instead. I now suspect this was happening because it was confused by seeing many duplicates of the same contact.

Then it started displaying phone numbers instead of contact names.

I then noticed that the contacts area in the regular Outlook application now showed, under the left pane area called "My Contacts," multiple Contacts sources labeled as contact syncs from my phone created by Phone Link.

I deleted those folders from the Outlook application. I also turned off "sync my phone's contacts" in the Android app for Phone Link.

Viewing my contacts on Outlook.com, however, still shows two different categories created by PhoneLink, each containing some 4,000 contacts (I have fewer than 500 contacts in Outlook or Gmail) with some of them duplicating more than 40 times. I cannot delete the category, and will not manually select 10 at a time to do this on the site. Nor is there a way to export this category of contacts.

Microsoft, you really, really need to address this bug and soon.

I concur - we need someone from Microsoft monitoring this and reporting as a serious bug to correct this sprint cycle...

Seriously? I hope a solution comes very quick. I think this is the reason my Outlook app on Android ran so slow. I even bought a new phone (not that bad, because the battery of the old one was worn out).

![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/cf182561-3d51-4951-a191-d02bc095f847?platform=QnA

The problem was resolved for me by helpful Microsoft support staff. I reported the issue via the Help menu of Outlook.com, and then via a chat conversation. After a while, the folder holding the thousands of orphaned duplicate contacts was gone. Assume they manually removed it from their side, because I did not have to do anything myself.

Paul, really appreciate the work you have done on this. Did you get some kind of ticket number from the Microsoft support staff that I could give them when I contact them.

Cheers..............Neil