iPhone and Outlook 365 contacts not syncing

Anonymous
2019-11-15T17:24:05+00:00

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

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Contacts

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.

0 comments

75 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T10:37:52+00:00

    "New contacts made in the phone do not sync."

    In case other people still have this issue, this may be a more classic problem & not that technical at all.   I would check to make sure you are creating a contact on iPhone under your O365 account not iCloud or GMail etc.

    iPhones supports multiple contact lists. Your default iPhone contacts more likely isn't your O365's.     It is an Apple thing, usually if you have O365, you will be using O365 contacts not iCloud or Gmail contacts as your primary contacts. 

    They seem to be missing some basic points in their design as they always do!  That is always been my observation.  Too much emphasis on aesthetic than functionality.  A simple user prompt to choose which contact/calendar etc should be default when adding a new account would've done the trick.

    On your iPhone, check Settings, Contacts, Default account

    Also different contact accounts have different color coding so you should be able to tell if your newly added contact on iPhone is not going to O365 account by looking at what color assigned to it & compare it to your existing O365 contacts.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-13T20:00:25+00:00

    I know this is an older thread, and admittedly I did not read EVERY response, but maybe this will help.

    It sounds like you don't have your outlook (live) account set to the default for contacts.

    Go into settings on the iPhone and go to Contacts.  Look where it says default account -- it is likely set to iCloud.

    This would explain NEW contacts not syncing back to Outlook as they are going to iCloud.

    Contacts you had already created are being edited inside the correct account (Outlook) on the phone, because that is where they reside.   Make sense?

    Hope that helps!

    (I'm not from Microsoft, but I like to help!)

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-29T23:09:29+00:00

    If you add a contact on your iPhone and then tap on Groups back at the search screen it brings up all of your contact accounts.  Swipe down on that screen and it will resync with iCloud and place your new contact in Outlook on your PC.  Clearly this is a bug, probably on the iPhone as you should not have to swipe down to resync Contacts to iCloud.  As with Calendar where clearly it works, this resync should happen automatically.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-05-27T13:04:40+00:00

    Hi.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I don't have a Default Group setting but do see Default Account.  That was and always has been set to the account I am syncing with.  However, all of a sudden, the syncing is now happening without my changing anything.  See my response to everyone else at the bottom of this chain.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2019-11-15T20:13:24+00:00

    Hi, I am an independent adviser trying to help you resolve your issue,

    Please refer to the thread linked below where similar problem is discussed and has been resolved

    => https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/fo...

    and also refer to the article linked below for troubleshooting calendar and contacts sync issues

    => https://support.office.com/en-us/article/can-t-...

    If you need further assistance do let me know.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments