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I am struggling with this issue since I switched from Gmail to Outlook. I exported Gmail contacts to .csv file and imported into Outlook.com account. MS Outlook 2016 (on both PC and Mac) and also on iPhone have no contacts. I wanted to sync all three device with Outlook.com server and get contacts from there. However due to unknown reasons when sync happens, I see that there are up to 9 duplicate contacts on Outlook.com contact list. Sometimes they appear as linked and sometimes separate.
Initially I though issue is related to Sync with iPhone and MS Outlook 2016. However then I deleted all contacts from Outlook.com account and all devices and also stopped all sort of sync with iPhone, PC and iMac. Now there is no contact on any of device. Then I uploaded .csv file exported from Gmail to outlook.com account. This .csv file have 179 rows with 179 contacts. Here is what happened: I see 50 contacts appeared twice on Outlook.com People account. Rest (179-50) contacts appeared once but there are two linked contacts on each card with once exception which has 3 links. When I click on "Links" on outlook.com account, first link shows "Outlook-(contacts)" and second link shows "Outlook-(My contacts). I checked .csv file and I see last column "Categories" is filled with "My contacts" all the way.
Next, I clicked Manage-->Clean up contacts to merge those duplicates and to my surprise many contacts are appearing up to 9 times in match list. That means somewhere inside the outlook.com contacts are listed up to 9 times.
It seems problem may be related to Outlook.com as now none of device is syncing back to Outlook.com account.
Then I tried one more thing:
I deleted all contacts from Outlook.com account and added two contact manually to Outlook.com contact list. To my surprise in few minutes, one contact was duplicated automatically. I also observed that even though I have deleted all contacts from Outlook.com (I have 0 contacts now), when I press Manage--->Clean up contacts, it shows hundreds of contacts are still there and there are lots of duplicates suggesting to merge! This is probably the root cause of issue. In spite of deleting everything from Outlook.com contacts, Contacts are retained somewhere on Outlook.com and when I add new contact, they merge and create duplicates.
On Outlook.com People page, I clicked Manage--> Restore deleted contacts. And, it showed that "you have 4539 contacts that can be restored". These are mainly same contacts which are inside .csv file I am trying to import appearing multiple times in deletion log. Is it possible that these deleted contacts residing somewhere inside Outlook.com are syncing back and merging back when I add same contacts via .csv file or manually?
Organizing and accessing contact information in Outlook.com
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I also have this problem. Outlook.com seems to be duplicating contacts every day! I have to remove duplicated contacts every day...
How can MS be so stupid to let this issue stay there for so long time?
I have been fighting the same thing for the past 2 weeks. I delete the contacts and then re-populate from outlook 2013. Then some replicate (exact duplicates) while I have some which look like historical contacts from the past.
I have stopped "syncing" my I phone with outlooks as these duplicates really pose a problem for my car's hand free (ie. which home number you want to call).
I migrated all my contacts to outlook 2013 and cleaned them up. I use that as my main list and then copy/clone to outlook.com. I no longer trust outlook.com and rarely use it, other than to check if the duplicates issue is corrected.
I synced my "new primary contacts" with the iPhone using iTunes and I now have a stable set of contacts on my phone.
In fact there is no syncing going on and yet duplicates keep happening.
MS: Please get in the game, this will surely get me to start using the apple ecosystem more..
Just here to say I have the same duplicate contacts issue. Using Outlook.com in Edge, Chrome and IE, Windows 10 Mail and a Windows phone.
Interestingly I was "blessed" with the new Outlook.com earlier this year but haven't had the duplicates issue until relatively recently... I guess I was just upgraded to the new UI, but my stuff was still on old servers...
Please MS speak up.
Oh no, Ross!
I'm still using the following three-part protocol and it's stable.
Rebuilding - I created an entirely new contacts list in my everyday Outlook profile. I add to it as people send me emails and contact info. Sometimes I get creeped out when Outlook adds info to the contact that I didn't manually add (where is it coming from??).
Reference - I created a separate Outlook profile on the desktop with an import (CSV) of the old contacts. Nothing else is in this profile, no email, no calendar. It's just a way of having the info handy and is a little easier to access than the CSV spreadsheet. The contact info is stable for months now.
Mobility - I keep the original contacts on my iPhone, backed up to iCloud. Likewise manual updates.
I don't sync anything. Fortunately, my contacts list doesn't vary much. I manually update and scrub contact info periodically. This is massively annoying, but it's a habit now and takes much less time than dealing with the duplicating problem.
I feel like I've gone back 20 years in technology, which is really frustrating since I'm usually an early adopter.
I was running reliably for a while there, but realised almost all the email addresses had been lost from my contacts so had to purge and re-import all my contacts from a backup (losing any updates I'd made in the past months). Now the contact duplication bug has kicked in again....