iPhone and Outlook 365 contacts not syncing

Good morning all -

I have an iPhone and Outlook 365.  I use the iPhone native contacts / calendar / email apps.  I use Outlook on my laptop.  I use a live.com account for my calendar and contacts.  I do not use the Outlook app on my phone.

When I make a calendar item it immediately syncs with my phone, regardless of whether I made the appointment on the phone or on the laptop in Outlook.

HOWEVER the same is not true with Contacts. 

1. Contacts I make or edit in Outlook on my laptop sync right away in the phone.
2. Existing contacts that are edited on the phone sync right away in Outlook.
3. New contacts made in the phone do not sync.
4. If I edit the new iPhone contact it still won't sync.

What is going on and how can I fix this?  This is happening on two phones in my family.

Thanks for any help,

Chris

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when someone responds to this post

Good morning all -

I have an iPhone and Outlook 365.  I use the iPhone native contacts / calendar / email apps.  I use Outlook on my laptop.  I use a live.com account for my calendar and contacts.  I do not use the Outlook app on my phone.

When I make a calendar item it immediately syncs with my phone, regardless of whether I made the appointment on the phone or on the laptop in Outlook.

HOWEVER the same is not true with Contacts. 

1. Contacts I make or edit in Outlook on my laptop sync right away in the phone.
2. Existing contacts that are edited on the phone sync right away in Outlook.
3. New contacts made in the phone do not sync.
4. If I edit the new iPhone contact it still won't sync.

What is going on and how can I fix this?  This is happening on two phones in my family.

Thanks for any help,

Chris

um

I finally figured out how to resolve getting updates and new contacts to sync with my Windows Mail contacts.  Not sure if this is everyone else's challenge, but that was mine.

From my iPhone 6s on software version 14.0.1, I updated my default Contacts account.  To change this, go into:

Settings | Contacts

Where is says DEFAULT ACCOUNT, make sure that's the account you want to save contacts.  I changed mine to my Hotmail account that I use almost exclusively in Windows mail.  Once that was changed, I tested by adding a new account to my iPhone and then seeing if I could see it on my PC.  Finally, success!

Hope that helps.

I also have the same issue, please let me know if there's any other solution because it's frustrating having my friends enter their contact info on my phone during a party (2019 and a few other times since) and the phone overwriting their changes (within a few minutes) and me not understanding (even in 2020) why it keeps happening!!!   :-(  Please help!

Here's a work around.  After you update or add a new contact on your iphone, go back to the main Contacts screen.  It's the one where you can search for a contact and it says Groups in the upper left corner of the screen.  Tap on Groups.  On the Groups screen swipe down on the screen.  You should see the circular type hour glass go around a few times.  Your phone just updated iCloud Contacts with the change or add you just made.

You shouldn't have to do this work around as anytime you make a change or add, your phone should automatically update iCloud Contacts.  Calendar still seems to be able to do the update automatically.  But unfortunately for some reason Contact updates stopped many months ago and Apple doesn't see to get it.