outlook.com contacts will only sync one way with android and outlook app

Anonymous
2017-02-12T14:17:29+00:00

I have added my hotmail.com account as exchange in outlook app on android (nexus 6).

Contacts sync one way only.

Problem:

  1. Any new contact added via the android native contacts app to the "hotmail.com" account is deleted without warning on next sync.
  2. Edits made to hotmail.com contacts in native android contacts app are overwritten and lost on next sync.

I have had this problem for more than 1 year. I have now spent about 50 man hours trying to find a solution.  Because the phone is unusable without the ability to add or edit contacts, I have been using my partners old iphone 5c, which syncs contacts both ways flawlessly but means I cant use my smart watch.

My hotmail account was "upgraded" to exchange some months back, but the result before and after is the same (after removing and re-adding of course)

I have spent probably 5 hours with MS support teams.  

  1. First I tried the outlook android app  "in-app" support. They got me to reinstall outlook and my account, and checked various things were ok, then said there was nothing wrong with my setup, and it must be an issue with the account itself. They sent me to the MS account support eam.
  2. The MS account support team said my account was fine, and it was nothing to do with them, and sent me to the desktop outlook support team.
  3. The desktop account team sent me back to the account support team.
  4. The account support team told me to go back to the android outlook in-app support team. they told me to get an apple phone instead.

So it looks like the 100 or so people who have the same problem have no support, and no solution, other than to switch to iPhone.

Outlook | Outlook for mobile | Outlook for Android | For business

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-08-13T10:06:51+00:00

    Are you not using the Outlook or OWA app from the play store? - these both work fine on my Samsung phones

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-08-16T05:14:14+00:00

    Hi Nutmix,

    Yesterday outlook for Android has updated on my Samsung J5.

    Now I can edit or add a contact directly on the phone (android contact app), and it will sync back to my master outlook contacts.

    Also contact that i receive by  whataspp now I can simply add!

    Although in terrible delay it seems he Microsoft has finally done a good job. How it was to be in version 1.0...

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-08-16T10:16:45+00:00

    Its great that two way sync works for most people.  It still does not for my nexus 6, even if I reinstall from scratch.  MS said they dont know what the problem is, it could be something on my hotmail account which I am using to sync (e.g. a contact with a strange field) or a problem with the nexus 6 (samsung phones dont seem to have the issue). I guess we will never know as MS said this is something they cant fix.   Sadly, the problem excludes me from using android.  luckily iphone syncs flawlessly, although it doesnt work properly with my moto 360 watch so I have had to abandon that.  As Iwatch is stupidly priced, I have found Garmin watches sync well with iphone AND have a 2 week battery life and always on display.  So thanks MS for forcing me to discover iphone and garmin smart watches.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-08-17T08:39:49+00:00

    The last update of outlook android (2.2.1) is of few days ago...

    Did you try with last update? The update solve my problems and now (only now!!!) all work also with android contacts app... very strange that your nexus does not work!

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-11-14T05:26:04+00:00

    When accessing outlook.com from a browser and viewing contacts, check if there are any additional contacts folders that they are being saved into. This was the case with me and screwed everything up.

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