Phone Link not showing Contact Names....again

By Outlook do you mean the Windows program? If so then that is exactly how I handle my contacts - all entered into the Outlook app.

Scooter47's observation sent me into the Outlook contacts list to see how the phone numbers are formatted. What I found is that the problem is just as Scooter47 described. Contacts with phone numbers shown with the area code between parentheses come through with names to my Android phone just fine, however the names get lost when the phone is syncing back to the Phone Link app.

I tried reentering these problematic phone numbers as Scooter47 suggests, however Outlook proves to be pretty persistent in reformatting them with the area code between parentheses. I imagine there's a setting somewhere in the Windows jungle that controls this, but I am too lazy to search it out. Instead I found that Outlook does not reformat contact phone numbers if they are entered as a eleven digit string (1-country,3-area code, 7-number) with no separators (i.e. - ( ) +). Entered this way the names stay with the phone numbers down to the phone and back up to the Phone Link app.

Or at least it seems to work for me...

While being happy to see that the Phone Link app has become much better over the last year or two, it seems to me that Microsoft should have dealt with inconsistencies like this by now.

EDIT: Well, it worked for a while... Now it does not - at least not consistently. Cannot see any rhyme or reason why some contact names come across fine and others do not. Come on Microsoft! This cannot be a bug that is that hard to track down and fix!

Barbara, I'm sorry it didn't work for you. The contacts on my phone have been transferred from 4 different phones and 3 different computers over the years. I like your practice of solely using Outlook and then synchronizing your phone but it's too late for me.

I would think if you entered all your contacts in Outlook (Microsoft) that it would be compatible with Phone Link (Microsoft) as well, but that makes too much sense.

Anyway, for some folks, it might help to go to your phone contacts app and delete and reenter their mobile phone numbers. It worked for me immediately without the need to specifically resync. It was an instantaneous update on Phone Link making me think Phone Link was communicating in real time with my phone contacts app. I have no idea if the update was processed through Microsoft servers, my Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or some other connection.

I wonder if I can ask AI chat to fix my stuff!

I'm glad you figured out a solution for your phone. My problem is different because I ONLY use Outlook contacts on my phone. I never ever enter a contact directly into my phone screen. I always enter people into Outlook from my laptop and let the phone sync with Outlook. That way I only have to maintain contacts in one place and that's Outlook. I don't have Gmail contacts either. The problem has to be something that Microsoft is doing on the servers because it gets fixed as soon as we start complaining. Just like last spring when people were sending emails and it showed in our Sent Folder but the recipient wasn't receiving the emails. After people complained to Microsoft, the problem got fixed.

To add a little bit of confusion to my solution stated in the previous post, removing these ( ) by editing my contacts phone numbers, now properly shows all the names of the individuals who are in on the test message, however text messages from a single contact show, in the message header, the contact name and phone number but with the ( ) added back in.

It appears that Phone Link displays the message header with the ( ) even if the phone numbers entered in the data section do not use the ( ).

I just solved this problem on my PC and android phone. It was so simple I'm glad to post here in hope this helps everyone.

In my case, under phone contacts I found that phone numbers had been either entered or displayed with ellipses around the area code. For example: any contact in my phone contacts whose phone number was shown in this format (xxx) xxx-xxxx got displayed as a phone number in Phone Link.

When I reentered the phone number in the following format xxx-xxx-xxxx the contacts named displayed properly in Phone Link messages!