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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
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I too am having this exact same problem. I've tried everything I can think of, but continue to get a huge volume of duplicated e-mails. I just had a whole batch of them get created over the weekend, when I was completely offline. Microsoft, how can you assist?
Same issue here. I never had this problem when I only had my phone connected to my account, so I feel like the different devices that are all linked now (Desktop Windows 10 system, Surface Pro 3, 950XL) are causing the issue.
It seems like the "people" web portal should be the authoritative entity that forces changes to all other devices.
Definitely needs fixed. I don't trust my contacts any more, and it has me thinking about changing my phone for something else.
Thanks for your prompt response. Unfortunately, the link you provided is a general search and the results do not address the issue I'm having. I sincerely wish Microsoft would give serious consideration to the specific circumstances and the specific question. I've spent a great deal of time on this and framed my question narrowly, with the sincere intent of generating a focused response. I've escalated this again to level 2 support in hopes of finding an answer to this problem that is not unique to me and that seems to cut across the silos of community queries.
Hi,
We appreciate your time and effort for getting back to us.
As you are accessing your account through the Microsoft Office 365 Outlook, I suggest you to post your query in Office forum for further assistance with the issue. We have a dedicated team to help you with this type of issues. Follow the below link to post your query in Office forum.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_365hp-outlook
Hope the above information helps.
I'm another Outlook user in severe pain since upgrading to Office 365 about 10 weeks ago from a very stable Outlook 2007 with manual iTunes contacts sync to my iPhone. Since the upgrade, I'm experiencing the same bizarre, unexplained Contacts duplication as described by others on this thread.
I've worked with online chat and Global Escalation Services, logging about 10-12 hours. I've deleted and purged contacts in Outlook Mail and Outlook 2016 desktop, created a new mail profile for Outlook 2016, disconnected from Skype, restored Windows 10, reinstalled Office 365 Home Personal, stopped syncing to iPhone, entered contacts manually to eliminate possibility of embedded information, not reinstalled my antivirus upon restoring Win 10, deleted old .oab and .ost files, stopped continuous backups (in case it might have created a sync loop), and otherwise done everything I can think of (or learned about from community boards, support, and google searches) since the beginning of March 2016.
I'm at a total loss as to why, approximately 24-48 hours after entering contacts information, Outlook has repeatedly duplicated most of the contacts, some to a total of 9 times, but some are not duplicated. Not only that, but the mystery sync retrieves really old contacts that I've deleted/purged.
My desktop Outlook Contacts are now unmanageable. For my iPhone, I'm running a workaround of a separate contact list on the phone that never syncs with Outlook. I pull down Outlook mail on the phone via my Exchange account, plus the calendar. Since I need the contacts most frequently on the phone, it's OK for now and appears stable.
My best guess is that there is a cache somewhere, perhaps on the server, that is called periodically to perform a sync of these contacts. Still, I would think that the contacts are all date-stamped in some way, so I don't know why they would reappear to override the most recent contacts list.
Can someone from Microsoft get an answer that gets at the heart of this issue?