Exchange contacts not syncing

[davidra]

For some reason the other day my Exchange contacts stopped syncing with my Mac and other devices. Thus, when I get a text message from someone in my contacts, instead of their name, their phone number shows up, and nothing shows up under Exchange contacts in the Contacts app. At the same time mail is syncing completely normally. The contacts do not show up in the contacts list on iCloud. I have Outlook for Mac, and the contacts show up there....but not in the Mac contacts list, which is where I want them.

1. Huh?
2. Is there any way to transfer contacts and calendar items to the Mac (ie iCloud server)? I'd just as soon stop using the Exchange server but I've got thousands of contacts in that contacts list.
3. Can you import an OLM file (which I guess is the export file from Outlook) into a Mac or iCloud?

 

[campyguy]

A long-standing bug exists that prevents synching from completing or stops synching of contacts altogether, it's been going for years - at least 2011, that I know of. I just use Outlook for my Exchange Server and Outlook 365. AFAIK, a "fix" is in the works from MS but I've heard that before; the outstanding issue is how Categories are handled - you'll get one sync one day and then the next sync gets borked...

A workaround that worked for me was to only sync Exchange contacts, no other contact type - no Gmail, no iCloud, no Yahoo - just Exchange contacts. A couple of my employees use this method, despite telling them to use Outlook - yep, I read server logs. To be clear, synching only to Exchange accounts is relevant only to contacts...

 

[davidra]

I no longer work at my Exchange server; I'm retired and I want to switch everything to iCloud (which may end up being worse) but what I just did was export all Exchange contacts in a comma delimited file, then imported that file into iCloud. I ended up with some weird things (like 100 cards that said only "Office number" but after cleaning it up, everything I was interested in transferred. I just need to make sure I don't add anything more into Exchange.

 

[campyguy]

Got it. There's been some wonkiness between Exchange Server and OS X's app since iSync went away. The Server side should be fine, at least OS X's apps - Calendar, Contacts - tend to not introduce garbage into Server or O365. My two employees have never bunged up their accounts, aside from synching interruptions - non-native clients tend to sync at 4-hour intervals; I've never seen data fields messed with on the Server end, FWIW.

There's also this bit here in MR Forums that I bookmarked, sort of illustrating how Categories seem to be the plug in the plumbing: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mac-but-work-on-iphone.1797036/#post-20487779

I've never seen the Server or O365 end compromised. I have also used the CSV workaround, using Excel - it's a bit of a kludge, as cumbersome as the post's solution above but without the "risk" of screwing up the host account. Cheers!

 

[mbkarrdna]

My office recently installed office 365 which included outlook 365. I use a windows based computer (Dell). When I had office 2010, I used the exchange feature on my apple-supplied mail app. I was able to load a contact on iphone and it would show up in my contact on my work computer and vice versa. My default for contacts was exchange. Now my work loaded 365. They took my phone and added the outlook app. It appears I no longer use the apple-supplied mail app. However, if I load a contact card on my desktop computer, I can see it in my contacts on my outlook; however, if I am say talking to someone and want to add their information with using using my phone, my new contact doesn't sync with outlook 365. The contact is only on my phone. What setting is not turned on so they I can go in both directions?