How do I sync Contact photos to Outlook.com

Anonymous
2012-09-22T05:33:53+00:00

Is there a way to have contact pictures sync to Outlook.com Contacts/People? When I use the hotmail connector sync my contacts from Desktop Outlook, the cantacts show in Outlook.com, but without the photos. When I have my phone contacts download from Outlook.com there are no photos shown on the phone. If I assign a photo to a contact on the phone, it does not sync back to outlook.com.

I switched from google to outlook.com, but may have to switch back if I cant find a way to fix the outlook.com contact photos. This worked fine on GMail.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Contacts

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-01-22T17:39:59+00:00

    So many years passed for something that is asked for all over web. So many times you have submitted this feature to the product team. Looks like communication is one direction only, any communication back?

    Is this feature accepted and if so, is there any targeted year for implementation?

    Microsoft - give us, your customers, something!

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-11-22T00:21:35+00:00

    the photos you add to contacts in outlook 2013, or on your phone, are *synced* to outlook.com. they just aren't *visible* on outlook.com. i can't speak to ios or windows phone devices, but I have outlook 2013 and the windows 8 mail/people app on three different PCs connected to a Hotmail account,, and I have several android devices connected to the same Hotmail account. I see the contact photos-which i have configured - in all apps on all PCs and devices. this means the photos are all being stored with those contacts in my outlook.com account, and are being synced to and from those apps and devices. the only place I don't see the contact photos is in a web browser at outlook.com/people.live.com. but I never use the web interface anyway, because I have outlook 2013 and the windows 8 mail app on all my computers.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-11-16T17:59:51+00:00

    Still no photo sync?  Really?  I would have to agree with the consensus throughout this conversation that it is absurd Microsoft is not allowing contact photo sync between Outlook desktop and Outlook.com.  There are no cross-platform integration issues here to blame it on, either.  It's all under the MSFT umbrella and there are no excuses as MSFT controls the dev resources on all sides of this thing.  This is not hard stuff, which leads me to believe MSFT is either withholding this functionality for some intentional reason or really doesn't understand the basic tenants of real-world User Experience.  

    People want to control how their contacts are displayed when email, text, or phone call is received.  That may mean a photo to be displayed on one of these devices shouldn't necessarily pull from a MSFT account or 3rd party social connector where the contact may often change photos.  I suspect many people, like me, desire to be able to have control of the photo to ensure consistency each time we see that email, text, or call come in for quick, visual recognition of the caller/sender.  It's much quicker (and safer when driving a car) to quickly glance and recognize the contact by face rather than by reading the name--which can be challenging for those of us who need reading glasses to make out text, by the way.  Facebook photos, in my opinion, often don't represent the caller in the recognizable format.  I know what my friend John Doe looks like and though I appreciate the picture of his kids on his linked Facebook or Twitter account, it doesn't help me recognize that it's John that is calling me.

    Linking a user-defined photo to a friend's contact record to enjoy a consistent experience across devices is a basic design principle known by software companies who have done their research and understand their consumers.  Apple and Google get it.  Not sure why Microsoft doesn't.  And the fact that nothing has changed in the last few years in this regard tells me they have their priorities mixed up.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-08-08T00:16:13+00:00

    Yeah I know it's 2014 now and still you can't do this function wish it's possible

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-07-31T01:44:27+00:00

    So, nearly two years later and this feature which is standard on nearly every other platform is still not implemented?

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