How to stop Outlook contacts from appearing in iMessage suggestions?

[bd700pilot]

Hoping some smart person here can figure this out. Latest phone and iOS. I use Outlook app for work email. I use Apple Mail app for personal email. My work requires me to have the phone setup as "Managed Apple Account". So that profile was setup a while ago. I do not sync Outlook contacts to my Contacts app. In my main Settings page I have my Name for my Apple ID of course at the top, then below that it has my work email listed, when I tap on that looks like your typical Apple ID settings (personal info, sign in, iCloud, etc, and also listed is "Profiles & Device Management". When I tap on this managed iCloud button, I have all iCloud features turned off for this work account, including Contacts. I have never synced, in any way, any Outlook contacts to my devices. I cannot find any setting in the Outlook app to toggle this, or in iOS settings. The Apple Intelligence on my phone is turned off, and the Siri settings are a bit confusing to say the least. iMessage settings don't refer to this function either. Here is screen shot of list of Outlook contacts that pop up when I start typing the name "Lisa", for example, in iMessage, as a new message. "Lisa" is one of my contacts and is in my iCloud contacts and Apple Contacts app, but you see all these other "Lisa"s being suggested. These other Lisas are apparently people that work at my company, but they are NOT in my saved contacts. Annoying. Thanks for any help folks!

 

[bd700pilot]

I also have this work account / profile installed on my iPad running latest iPadOS. Same behavior. Checked all my settings and they are identical on both devices (Siri, contacts, iMessage, Outlook). Just tried nuclear option (I assumed) and deleted the Outlook app from my iPhone. Problem persists: Work contacts showing up when I compose a new iMessage, and those contacts are not saved contacts anywhere.

 

[kitKAC]

Your first post is a bit hard to read; some paragraphs would work wonders.

My guess is that the profile(s) you have installed are linking your devices to the Work directory. Are you able to remove the one from the iPad and see what happens?

 

[bd700pilot]

Your first post is a bit hard to read; some paragraphs would work wonders.

My guess is that the profile(s) you have installed are linking your devices to the Work directory. Are you able to remove the one from the iPad and see what happens?

Oops sorry for no paragraphs, thank you for the suggestion.

The process to install the work profile back onto the device is such a pain that I am going to live with this annoyance as I have already wasted so much time turning off AI and Siri features to no avail, and need to have email access on the device.

I think you nailed it, it has to be the profile accessing the work database.