Help Wanted Exchange Synch, Not Gmail

[David Marceau]

Before I got my Nexus 6P I moved a few contacts to my Exchange email contacts in hopes that my new phone would pull in only those few phone contacts I wanted on my phone list and not the hundreds that had accumulated on my old phone through unwanted synchs with Gmail, Facebook, Exchange, etc.

Unfortunately, the phone automatically pulled hundreds of Gmail contacts (most with no phone numbers) into my phone list and not the Exchange contacts I wanted on it, even though I have all the desired contacts listed in Outlook for Android.

I want to get rid of all the contacts in my phone list and have it read my contacts from Exchange/Outlook so that I can keep the number of phone contacts to a minimum and control it going forward. How do I perform these two simple tasks?

 

[svim]

In your Settings >> Accounts menu you should see your Google and your Outlook accounts in the list. Click on each individually to get to your account info and you should be able to uncheck/check the 'Sync Contacts' box for the appropriate mail services you want. Then open up your 'Phone' and go to the 'Contacts' tab. In your Contacts menu there should be several options you can use to change what you see in your Contacts list -- 'Merge accounts' 'Accounts' 'Contacts to display' and also 'Settings'.

 

[David Marceau]

Thanks svim.

I can see that Outlook is synching regularly and the Outlook app is working fine - it's just not propagating contacts over to the Phone app.

I do see a Contacts synch option for Google and have turned that off but still can't get rid of all the Gmail contacts that have polluted the phone app. How do I get rid of these?

In the phone contacts tab under Settings there's no option to determine where the contacts are coming from, e.g. Contacts to Display. The only Display options are for sorting. Is there another way to select this?

 

[svim]

Nuts, I'm surprised the Contacts app in your Nexus has such different menus and functionality as my old Galaxy S3. I don't have an Outlook account so I can't add much more. Hopefully someone with better familiarity with your situation will chime in.

 

[David Marceau]

I switched from an S3 which is where I got it in my head that the phone would automatically find my Exchange Mail contacts. No so...

 

[svim]

Well, Microsoft's Exchange has never been a good example in open sharing with other platforms and when you add in the general antipathy between Google and Microsoft it's pretty amazing that Outlook even works as well as it does. How weird is it that we pay them to buy their stuff but we get screwed so much?