How to sync contacts between outlook 2016 and iphone?

Question

With outlook 2010, I had no problem syncing contacts in a data file to my iPhone using USB cable and iTunes. Itunes allowed you to chose the outlook contacts folder to sync.

The first sync after updating outlook to 2016 wiped all my contacts from the phone, including ones I had updated and not synced back to outlook yet.

in iTunes, when you select "Sync contacts with outlook" the "selected groups" options is now gone, and it doesn't sync.

The other option is "Sync contacts with windows contacts", but I dont have any (and they are not syncable with hotmail or outlook).

Any ideas of what we can try? icloud is not an option, as it only syncs existing iphone phone contacts with an icould folder in outlook, not my outlook contacts or hotmail contacts.

I have spent a fortune on 3rd party products, and dont want to go down this route just to get my contacts on my phone (I gave up years ago trying to sync calendars or notes with any device, including android).

Another thing I tried was to setup a Hotmail account in outlook, copy (duplicate) some contacts to this, install outlook on the iPhone. This doesn't work because although the contacts now appear in outlook on the iPhone, they don't appear in the iPhone contacts list, so you cant call them!

Windows 10 64 bit, office 365/2016 64 bit.

Solution 1

After several weeks without contacts or calendar on my iphone after upgrading to office 2016, I found a solution. I have not found this solution posted or mentioned anywhere.

Firstly, you need a microsoft account, which is generaly hotmail.com or outlook.com. These are not exchange accounts, exchagne is something you have to pay for separately (although one is included in one of the business office 365 packages).

I would recommend using "first last" as the file as and display order in outlook, and changing all your existing contacts to use this first.

Steps to sync:

ON PC:

1. Download and install the hotmail connector. It may come as part of office 2016 (but was not part of office 2010 at least)
2. Add your microsoft account to outlook (not using imap, using the hotmail connector)
3. In outlook, drag all your contacts from their current location (for me was a datafile) to your hotmail contacts.
4.

ON iPhone:

1. Settings->Mail, contacts, Calendars->Add Account
2. Select outlook.com (even for hotmail.com accounts).
3. enter yuor email and password.

Thats it. Now the contacts magically sync between iphone and outlook. If you change a contacts details on either side, it is synced on the other side.

The only minor issue, is if you change the contacts name on the iphone, you get a duplicate in outlook, the old one and the new one.

Solution 2

Subscribe to Office 365 and you can sync your iPhone via the Exchange account. Or give up on Outlook and switch over to Google. Office 365 and Google work well for me. Have not had good luck syncing through iTunes.

Comments

[Philipp Stauss]

With Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 you do not need to install the hotmail connector anymore: support.office.com/en-us/article/…