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

This worked for me on my Samsung Galaxy S8.

Installed the recently updated Outlook app and added my Outlook.com account.  (Note: I have a custom domain hosted on Outlook.com.  Pretty sure you can't do that anymore, but if you are one of the legacy users like me, this will work.)

After I added my account, I went into the Outlook app and under settings, and tapped the account (named for my email address) in the Accounts section.  There I enabled "Sync Contacts".  Microsoft was thoughtful enough to display a note saying the sync may take up to an hour to complete but mine synced immediately.

From there, I went to the native Android contacts app to confirm that the Outlook account was now listed for sync.  Tap Settings and then Contacts to Display.  You should see the Outlook account listed there.

Guidance is here for both Android and iOS...

https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/06/05/improving-people-in-outlook-for-ios-and-android/?wt.mc_id=AID600843_QSG_SCL_143295

> Let us not forget there are a lot of people who say 2 way contact sync between MS

> account (exchange) and Android actually works.

I'm one of those people. I used the "Corporate" account type on my Android device (6.0.1) and the standard Email, Contacts, and Calendar apps work just fine in both directions. I can update in a web browser, on the phone, or with Outlook 2016 on a desktop and the changes sync across all. I do not use the Outlook for Android app.

There are good news:

https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/06/05/improving-people-in-outlook-for-ios-and-android/?wt.mc\_id=AID600843\_QSG\_SCL\_143295

Unfortunately, this will not actually solve the issue. The requirement is that if you edit or add a contact directly on the phone, it will sync back to your master outlook contacts. This is how it has worked on iOS for the last 4 years.  Currently in Android, if you edit a contact using the phones built in contact manager, outlook simply overwrites it. If you add a contact using the Android built in contacts app, outlook deletes it for you. If this does not change, using Android with a microsoft account for contacts synchronisation will still be fundamentally broken.  Who wants to be forced to always use outlook?  What if another app adds a contact to the android phone book outside of outlook? Presumably this will still be deleted by outlook as it is now.

So I don't foresee being able to shift from iPhone back to Android any time soon.  It is a crazy situation where MS is forcing us to go Apple as its the only platform which works with MS Exchange contacts.

Let us not forget there are a lot of people who say 2 way contact sync between MS account (exchange) and Android actually works. Even 3 MS technicians told me this, and tried to "fix" my phone. They could not.  So there is a question of if 2 way sync already works, but is broken for a large number of people.  I cant find any evidence either way as I don't know anyone else who uses MS accounts as their master.  I cant use gmail as my master account as there is no way to sync it with outlook on my PC, which I have to use for work purposes.

There are good news:

https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/06/05/improving-people-in-outlook-for-ios-and-android/?wt.mc\_id=AID600843\_QSG\_SCL\_143295

For Android the roadmap is here (in development):

https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-roadmap?filters=outlook#abc

The problem you describe is an Android constraint. Same if using iOS. 

Note, I do not believe this is entirely correct.  Firstly, 2 way sync works flawlessly on iOS, and android does not make any limitations for reading the address book. Also, Outlook app WRITES to the address book on android no problem, it just doesnt bother reading it to send back changes.  Many apps read the address book.  Why would google allow an app to overwrite entries, and create new entries, but not allow to read? That would make zero sense.