New Outlook: Shadow contacts not stored in Outlook.com, no sync/export and missing Birthday calendar
I’m reporting a reproducible data‑integrity issue in the New Outlook for Windows that affects Outlook.com contact storage and synchronization. 🔍 Summary When a contact is created in the New Outlook, the client appears to save it successfully. However, the resulting contact is not stored in the user’s Outlook.com account as a normal cloud contact. Instead, it becomes what I would describe as a local “shadow contact” in the New Outlook cache. ⚠️ Observable Behavior • The contact appears in Outlook.com → People, but does not show “Stored in: Outlook” • The contact does not appear in Outlook.com CSV exports • The contact does not sync to mobile devices connected to the same account • The contact does not populate the Outlook.com Birthday calendar • The contact is lost if the New Outlook app is reinstalled or its local store is cleared 🧪 Steps to Reproduce 1. Open the New Outlook for Windows 2. Create a new contact and add a birthday 3. Save the contact 4. Open Outlook.com → People 5. Locate the contact — it will appear, but the “Stored in: Outlook” field is missing 6. Export contacts from Outlook.com (CSV) — the contact will not be present 7. Check a mobile device configured with the same Microsoft account — the contact will not be present 8. Check the Outlook.com Birthday calendar — the birthday will not appear 9. Reinstall the New Outlook app — the contact will be gone ✅ Expected Behavior • Contacts created in the New Outlook should be stored as first‑class Outlook.com contacts • They should appear with a proper “Stored in: Outlook” location • They should sync across devices, export via Outlook.com, and populate the Birthday calendar ❌ Actual Behavior • Contacts created in the New Outlook are effectively “shadow contacts” stored in a local cache • They look normal in the New Outlook UI, but they are incomplete, non‑synchronizing objects from the service’s perspective 📉 Impact • Silent data loss risk for users who assume contacts are in Outlook.com when they are not • Inconsistent contact and birthday data across devices and services • Split contact store model: • Real Outlook.com contacts • Local shadow contacts created by New Outlook 📎 What I’ve Already Done • Submitted feedback through the New Outlook (Help → Feedback → Report a Problem) • Submitted a detailed report via the Windows Feedback Hub • Contacted Microsoft Support, who advised that escalation must occur via Feedback 📣 Request I’m posting this here to document the issue publicly and to ask: • Can anyone from the Outlook / Exchange / Outlook.com team confirm this behavior? • Can other users reproduce this with the steps above? Given the data‑integrity implications, I’m hoping this can be brought to the attention of the relevant engineering team. Any confirmation, additional data points, or official guidance would be appreciated.outlook contacts continuously restore themselves
I decided to clean out my contacts in outlook, so I exported them all out to a .csv file and then I deleted all 1,200 of them (100 at a time, because apparently microsoft feels that any higher amount would be bad...). Then I spent a few hours in excel combining, consolidating and deleting them down into about 600 contacts. When I went back into outlook and clicked on people, to my surprise all 1,200 of my original contacts were right there again as if I'd done nothing. I figured that some other device must be restoring (through some normal synching process), so I turned off **REMOVED** computers and phones that I've ever used to access outlook). Then I deleted all of the contacts once more, this time using the OWA webpage with my local outlook completely closed. Unfortunately, the exact same thing happens. After repeating that process several more times last night, I shut down my laptop and went to bed. I got up this morning, opened my local outlook app, clicked on people and there were no contacts there at all. For about 5 seconds I was happy, until all 1,200 of them instantly popped right back up like a really bad joke or a dream. Something either on my computer or (I suspect) on microsoft outlook servers is automatically forcing a complete restore of all my contacts. Two side notes: 1) I can create/add and delete single contacts and those changes seem to stick, and 2) I can delete all contacts except a single one and that seems to stick, and 3) I can import my cleaned up .csv file containing 600 contacts back into outlook (with only the one single remaining contact in there), it says that all 600 contacts have been successfully imported, and then within minutes - all 1,200 contacts are back right where they were in the beginning. The truly frustrating part about this issue (and most companies these days), is that IF the customers could possibly **REMOVED** about it so that we can simply continue to make and sell more stuff. It's very sad
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