Can't edit contact details in Outlook Live

Anonymous
2016-08-09T23:09:11+00:00

Since Microsoft "upgraded" Outlook Live a month or so ago, I've had problems editing details, such as email addresses and phone numbers, for people in my Contacts list. For instance, one contact's first name, last name, personal email, cell phone and two home phone numbers are editable: if I wanted to, I could put my cursor in the box and delete or type over them. But for some reason, the business number, which is no longer valid since the person is no longer employed, can't be deleted. The box is grayed out, and when I try to highlight the number with my mouse in order to delete it, the mouse doesn't work. This is true for other contacts in my list as well. Has anyone else had this baffling and frustrating problem?

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Contacts

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-06-16T10:33:46+00:00

    Now 10 months....and still broken.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-06-20T10:59:13+00:00

    I have the same problem.  I can edit everything except phone numbers and emails - I can add but not delete.  Even overwriting doesn't work - it just saves the new information along with the old, leaving the old as default - not what I need or want!  The only workaround I have found is to create a new contact with the necessary information and delete the old one - but this isn't feasible when you have a large number of updates to make, and it shouldn't be necessary anyway.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-06-26T17:20:10+00:00

    SOLUTION TO UN-EDITABLE FIELDS!!!!

    The grey fields are fields that were imported from another contact list such as yahoo.mail. They can only be deleted from original source. This problem should be fixed within outlook by microsoft. In the meantime this is the only solution.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-06-27T08:55:10+00:00

    SOLUTION TO UN-EDITABLE FIELDS!!!!

    The grey fields are fields that were imported from another contact list such as yahoo.mail. They can only be deleted from original source. This problem should be fixed within outlook by microsoft. In the meantime this is the only solution.

    Hi Dan, 

    This may be the case for some people, but for others like myself it is not a solution. I do not have any imported contacts from anywhere else. Also, it makes no sense - I was under the impression that an import was a one off import, rather than connecting accounts so that the contacts are in sync?

    I managed to get into a help session with someone mildly more helpful than usual the other day, and he seemed to think that my personal issue with being unable to edit/delete contacts was that I had edited/created contacts in Windows Live. Which is entirely possible, given that I have had my email address since 1998 and been through lots of different versions of outlook clients as well as used my Hotmail account on the web.

    I can't delete from my original source, because it doesn't exist any more - you can't download windows live from any reputable source any more, and it *is* Hotmail/OWA.

    I pointed this out and the guy did the virtual equivalent of a shrug.

    Frustrating. My address book is becoming increasingly unusable/unstable and I have actually considered going back to a paper version recently, as I have noticed several contacts are now missing information that were in the fields that for others are un-editable. I so want my account to function as well as it used to. I used to have a really slick, neat, tidy and well manged contact list that was so comprehensive I managed postal mailings from it, and now it is a distressing mess.  :o(

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-06-27T14:08:07+00:00

    Hi Dan. This might be the case with some users but my research proofs that this is not the main problem.

    To everybody concerned:

    Please see my personal thread...

    “Migration from people.live.com to outlook.live.com has destroyed my address book!”HERE.

    There I described everything very thoroughly.

    Please participate there as well. We just need more attention by Microsoft.

    Thanks.

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