We can now synchronize Outlook & Android without a 3rd party app or Exchange Server!

[Miami_Son]

This is getting more unusual by the day. I was just looking at my Hotmail contacts in Outlook, which I originally copied over from my default address book in Outlook, using the same display setting as my original contacts, but they show without any addresses. Looking at them individually the info is there, it just doesn't show in the Outlook view.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

SUSA42JA: Sounds like your HTC apps are significantly different than my Sprint apps, so I'm not sure I can help much.

Over several minutes my Hotmail mails and contacts (with a bizarre set of "files as" mixture) were in my HTC device, BUT MY CALENDAR

I don't even have a "files as" field in my stock Sprint Android contacts app (which I thought was the stock Android app), so I'm afraid that I can't help much on the "files as" thing. I didn't even think that field could be synced. (You may want to check the "display options" in your contacts app.)

Now that I try to sync I keep having "the exchange Server returned some status error".

Here too, I've never seen a message like that on my LG Optimus S. I don't really even understand where/how you would see such an error message. Is it a pop-up window on your phone? Can you explain? Whatever is causing that is likely the root of the problem.

Another possibly useful info is that, when I open my can't-synced, empty as air calendar application>menu>more>calendars, I only can see PC sync calendar (checked) but no other calendar.

I don't know what "PC sync calendar" means. Under that calendars screen you should see your Hotmail account with a white rectangle containing circular sync arrows and an eyeball. Tapping on that should cycle through "synced, visible", "synced, not visible", and "not synced, not visible". Cycle through unti it's synced and visible.

I assume that you've gone to Settings/Accounts & sync, and then selected the Hotmail account and put check marks in both the contacts and calendar boxes.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

I was just looking at my Hotmail contacts in Outlook, which I originally copied over from my default address book in Outlook, using the same display setting as my original contacts, but they show without any addresses. Looking at them individually the info is there, it just doesn't show in the Outlook view.

In Outlook, my contacts are displayed exactly the same in my Hotmail contacts folder as in my Outlook Data File contacts folder. (And both folders display all 3 mailing addresses and all 3 email addresses). If I go to the "View" menu in Outlook 2010, and look at "View" menu under "Change View", I can see that I use the "card" view for the contacts folder in my Outlook Data File and for the contacts folder in my Hotmail Data File. (I'm pretty sure that I never customized that "view".)

You wrote that you have the same "display setting" but just so to be sure that we mean the same thing, I'm going to note that I'm assuming that you meant "View Setting" (which is what it's called in Outlook 2010). I'm not sure which version of Outlook you're using (and it may vary by version) but I'm guessing that what may have happened is that at some point you took a standard "view" and customized it in your Outlook Data File. But I'm guessing that in Hotmail, you're using one of the standard "views". You may want to play around with that.
* In Outlook 2010 (and Outlook 2007?) it's under the View menu, then "View Settings" or "Change View".
* In Outlook 2003 it's under View/Arrange by/Current View..., then "Customize Current View" or "Define Views".

 

[Miami_Son]

View Setting, Display Setting...both refer to Current View that shows up in the left pane under Contacts. I have Detailed Address Cards selected for both. Something other than the display is changing, actual changes are being made to my contacts and it appears to be bghy Hotmail. All my business contacts now have the name of the business entered into the Name field, so thew company name now shows twice. Only the business contacts in my Hotmail account are affected in Outlook. If I edit the contact and remove the entry in the Name field, it still comes back shortly, I'm guessing after it syncs. I'm going to try deleting everything from my Hotmail contacts online and on the phone and letting it sync anew from Outlook to see if it keeps happening because I don't like this behavior. I want Outlook to be the control set and not subject to change by Hotmail. I'm on Outlook 2007.

 

[Miami_Son]

Other changes I've found: a number of my personal contacts have had their addresses moved from Home to Business with the checkmark for "This is the mailing address" checked. Several friends have had their addresses completely removed. Several have had their phone numbers changed from Business to Company, a field that doesn't automatically show in the Current View so the contact displays as blank. When I look at my contacts in Hotmail the number never matches what I have in Outlook. It varies by 3 or 4, but trying to find which 3 or 4 are missing is a real pain. Some of my business contacts have a company name and a person's name. I prefer they list by company name, but they get changed to listing by the person's name, which makes them hard to find since I don't always remember who it is and what company they are associated with.

 

[SUSA42JA]

SUSA42JA:
Here too, I've never seen a message like that on my LG Optimus S. I don't really even understand where/how you would see such an error message. Is it a pop-up window on your phone? Can you explain? Whatever is causing that is likely the root of the problem.
I don't know what "PC sync calendar" means. Under that calendars screen you should see your Hotmail account with a white rectangle containing circular sync arrows and an eyeball. Tapping on that should cycle through "synced, visible", "synced, not visible", and "not synced, not visible". Cycle through unti it's synced and visible.
I assume that you've gone to Settings/Accounts & sync, and then selected the Hotmail account and put check marks in both the contacts and calendar boxes.

My problem is probably what seebert recently posted.

Originally Posted by seebert
I have no problem with contacts- I cannot get my calendar! I set up a google calendar- I have my msn account in hotmail i.e. to log into hotmail I use msn.com)- I have outlook connector and always have....can someone tell me SIMPLY in easy terms HOW to synch my calendar to my phone!!! thanks to you all

You've suggested him

6) From within the calendar app on your Android phone, hit the setting button and select More/Calendars. You should see your Hotmail calendar listed.

Within my calendar app>more>calendars there is no "Hotmail calendar". How do you think is this possible?!
I've converted to "Improved Mail" unwillingly as workaround. Wish I could use EAS.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Miami_Son: For me (on Outlook 2010 & an LG Optimus S) none of the data in Outlook is changing (not the address, mailng address checkmark, company name, phone number field associations, etc.) It's all perfect.

I have my phone set to sort by last name. If I have a contact in my Outllook Hotmail folder that has a company name but no first-name or last-name, then my phone sorts it by company name. Unfortunately, if I have a contact in Outlook Hotmail folder that has a company name and a first-name & last-name, then my phone displays it by the last-name. But that does not change anything in my Outlook/Hotmail contacts folder.

Maybe sometime when I get a chance I'll do some experiments with an old Outlook 2007 PC to see if there's some bug in Outlook 2007.

Do you have Outook 2007 completely updated (Service Pack 2, etc)? www.update.microsoft.com.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Within my calendar app>more>calendars there is no "Hotmail calendar". How do you think is this possible?!
I've converted to "Improved Mail" unwillingly as workaround. Wish I could use EAS.

On my Sprint LG Optimus's stock calendar app, from within the calendar app, I see my Name@Hotmail.com account with an arrow on the left side. If I click that arrow to expand, it shows me the sync/view settings for the calendar. I guess you're not seeing that?

From the Android home screen, if you hit the setting button, and then go to Settings/Accounts & sync, do you see your Hotmail account and does it say "Sync is ON"?

Then if you select that Hotmail account, is there a checkbox for "Sync Contacts" and a checkbox for "Sync Calendar"? Are they both checkmarked?

 

[meboy]

The Google add-in for Outlook doesn't work for SH*T. If you think it does you haven't tested it at all or enough.
Try a search in G for problems with it.

Absolutely and there is no limitation on the no. of imported no. of contacts. This is a native sync between android and gmail.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wyelkins
There is an Outlook Add-in from Google (free) that will accomplish much the same thing, unless you really want to use Hotmail. Setup a gmail account and a google calendar using this account. The Outlook add-in can be configured to run on a timed basis or you can also force the sync manually. This will sync your Outlook with the Web Google Calendar. then you setup your stock Android Calendar to sync with the web calendar.

The Outlook add-in can be setup to sync both ways or one way in either direction. This can be changed easily from the same screen you use to force sync on the PC. This add-in can show in the system tray.

I prefer to do the data entry in Outlook and let the double sync get it to the Android. I will probably rarely look at the Web Google Calendar.

I just installed this over the weekend, so I know that it works.

 

[lborgens]

I was going through the process outlined by RazMaTazz (great job!) and broke my contact list into 3 parts (about 2500 contacts total) in order to import them into Hotmail. As I was uploading the second set (contact 1000 - 2000) i got an error from the Hotmail import page saying that only 1500 contacts were permitted.

There is an option to upgrade to "Hotmail Plus" but I can't find anywhere that tells me how many contacts are allowed in a Hotmail Plus account so don't want to throw away $20.00 and still have the same problem. I don't mind spending the $20.00 if it SOLVES the problem...

Does anyone know how many contacts I can have in a Hotmail Plus account?

 

[RazzMaTazz]

I was going through the process outlined by RazMaTazz (great job!) and broke my contact list into 3 parts (about 2500 contacts total) in order to import them into Hotmail. As I was uploading the second set (contact 1000 - 2000) i got an error from the Hotmail import page saying that only 1500 contacts were permitted.

There is an option to upgrade to "Hotmail Plus" but I can't find anywhere that tells me how many contacts are allowed in a Hotmail Plus account so don't want to throw away $20.00 and still have the same problem. I don't mind spending the $20.00 if it SOLVES the problem...

Does anyone know how many contacts I can have in a Hotmail Plus account?

To prevent professional spammers from using Hotmail, new Hotmail accounts are initially, temporarily limited to 1500 contacts, but that limit is increased (and virtually unlimited) if you either prove yourself to be a legitimate user over time, or if you follow the instructions here at this link.
Windows Live Contacts Limit

I'll update my original post to reflect this issue.

 

[rwk]

Three quick comments.

1. This is a very useful thread and I appreciate everyone's contributions (with a special thanks to Razz).

2. The reason I am so interested in using Hotmail to sync with Outlook is because I was previously using Google to sync and I ended up losing ALL of my calendar information. I learned the hard way that Google offers very little in the way of technical support for their free pograms (which seem more Beta-like in nature than finished products). Despite hours of effort, my data is still lost somewhere in the Google cloud.

3. Based on the info in this thread, I have successfully set up a new Hotmail calendar and it is syncing just fine with Outlook.

 

[Miami_Son]

Great. So I follow the link to Windows Live and connect my cell phone so I can have the contacts limit raised and now M$ is blowing up my phone with all kinds of texts every time I get an e-mail or something on FB. How the F do I turn this off? I have only 200 texts a month and M$ has already used 17 of them in little over an hour.

Edit: turned off notifications online on WL site. Stopped the texts, but not until I got about 27 of them. Why would anyone want to be texted EVERY time someone posts to their wall on FB or posts a reply to a comment? Who needs to be THAT connected?

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Miami_Son: I'll update the original post to warn others that they may want to turn off social-network notifications if they provide Windows Live with their phone number.

 

[Miami_Son]

Miami_Son: I'll update the original post to warn others that they may want to turn off social-network notifications if they provide Windows Live with their phone number.

Good idea.

 

[crowntown]

First, I'm grateful to @RazzMaTazz for creating this thread. I've tested most of the free and some of the paid 42 "solutions" that exist for Outlook-Android syncing and have to report that NONE of them did what I wanted it to, and ALL of them did things I didn't want them to. The 42 solutions are half-baked apps that have been rushed to market with insufficient testing, and they're all riddled with major bugs that render them unusable for me. On a positive note, I did receive full refunds by the creators of all the apps I paid for -- so at least the developers are ethical.

While this Hotmail setup doesn't quite approach Outlook-Android nirvana -- and @RazzMaTazz didn't claim it did -- I have to say it's the BEST solution out there for syncing calendar and contacts. It's also free, and has the fewest bugs so far, so I'm going to stick with it, now that I've set everything up properly on my phone and in Outlook and #sigh of relief# it's working.

Setting up the whole thing and tweaking Outlook and your phone to behave the way you want them to takes a little time, but it's time richly rewarded. I am in complete agreement that Google has enough information in their indexes already -- they don't need to know when my next appointment with my shrink is, and at what restaurants I dine, or what the contents of my business meetings are. (I figured they never developed a good contact sync beyond the one that was hatched prematurely in 2009, because they can already extract/extrapolate what info they need from our emails, which their bots so blithely scan.) Of course, there's no guarantee that Microsoft won't pry into calendar and contact data at some point, but psychologically, I feel less exposed having my data in MS's cloud.
Enough commentary. Onto the point of this message...

Things are syncing very nicely. The data limit of certain fields when uploading to the Hotmail contact manager was a rather insignificant problem, and affected only a few contacts because I had "prepped" my contact list in advance by paring it down and removing extended notes. At first, I was dismayed that the ever-so-handy Outlook To-Do bar (Outlook versions 2007 and 2010 only) was still reading my default Outlook.PST calendar. So I corrected the situation by going to Control Panel | Mail | Data Files and making the Hotmail account the default location. Export your rules before doing this, or you will very likely lose them! The reason for this is the To-Do bar calendar will only read from a single calendar, and that will be whatever your default calendar is. Oddly, the Tasks component of the To-Do bar still appears to be reading tasks from the original Outlook.PST data file. But that actually works out, because there are no tasks in the new Hotmail setup, since they don't sync. Note that changing the default data file in Control Panel | Mail is safe, and does NOT change the delivery location of your e-mail, which is what you want to happen in most cases.

The one slightly annoying issue that has arisen -- and this is by no means a dealbreaker -- is that the original categories assigned to events/appointments when they existed in the original Outlook.PST file, get a little screwed up in the version that appears in the Hotmal version in Outlook. So, for example, if I had assigned the category "Personal Appointment" to an event and the color of that category is green, after syncing, it now shows up with THREE categories assigned to it (by Hotmail, I'm presuming): "Personal Appointment" (green); "Other appointment" (white) and "Personal" (blue). BUT, for some reason, the To-Do bar is smart enough to know what the original color/category assigned was, so that's what displays. It also displays small rectangles of the other colors as well, and I can't get rid of them. I've removed the unwanted categories from the appointment in Outlook and re-synced, but they keep getting added back in by Hotmail. Small price to pay for the fact that everything else works, so I'll live with it. I should note that this behavior doesn't happen with every categorized event/appointment in the calendar, just to some, and I haven't figured out a pattern yet.

Re: the new and unmovable OST file that is created when you go with this setup, I just use a task scheduler to copy the file into my Documents folder, which I back up regularly. As @RazzMaTazz has pointed out, it's probably unnecessary to do that, as the file exists offsite and would be rebuilt with Calendar and Contact data as soon as you set up the Hotmail account on a new/another computer running the Outlook Hotmail Connector.

The other thing you'll notice is that Outlook will display your default folders upon clicking the "Calendar" and "Contacts" buttons in the Navigation Pane (left side of Outlook). But in Outlook 2010 (and maybe 2007, can't remember) you can select which folder will display from whatever PST/OST files you have open by checking a box or highlighting the appropriate folder at the top of the nav pane, when you click one of the nav buttons. So, you'll want to change the behavior of the Calendar and Contacts buttons by selecting the Hotmail version of those folders. Otherwise, you may display empty calendars and contact folders if you've emptied them out, or old versions of these folders if you'e copied the data to the "live" Hotmail folders.

I have not experienced any battery issues on my power-hungry Atrix 4G. I did notice that Android (or maybe the MotoBlur overlay?) changed the color of the text of my calendar events on the phone to a hideous sea green. Previously, it was dark blue and thus easier to read when I was syncing with Google, but again, this is not a dealbreaker. It's still readable.

What else... Nothing! Until we get the Ultimate Sync that will sync everything accurately (and, optionally, via non-cloud methods), this solution gets my highest mark and is the way to go. It should also be listed as the 43rd solution on that Android Sync Software page. And the only one that really works.

EDITED TO ADD: I noticed today that my Rules were completely wiped out. This likely happened when I made the Hotmail Sync account my new default data file for calendar and contacts. I am used to Outlook's many quirks, so I had exported my rules a few months ago and therefore easily imported them.

CT
14-year Outlook user
2-month Atrix/Android user

 

[Miami_Son]

While I'm happy to be using this method, I am somewhat disappointed in a few behaviors related to the implementation. My biggest gripe is that since I am now using the IMAP version of my Hotmail account and not the POP3 variant I had been using, I no longer get the audio announcement of new mail I have been using for years. I have my laptop at home setup to check mail every 15 minutes and to announce the arrival of new mail with a sound file (from within Windows, not Outlook), but it no longer works with this setup.

Another issue is using Rules. I have a few rules setup to move incoming mail to various folders based on certain criteria. This worked fine on my POP3 account, not so much on the new Hotmail account. In fact, the only way I can get rules to run on that account is to do so manually. Kinda defeats the purpose. I created a rule to move all incoming mail to the Hotmail account to the Outlook Inbox associated with the POP3 account hoping that would fix the sound notification issue. No joy. Deleting that POP3 account might solve the issue, but I prefer to move all my e-mails to those subfolders because they then get saved to my original Outlook.pst file, which I prefer over the new .ost file.

 

[netify]

Taking a step way back to post #37:

To clarify, after setting up the Hotmail account, like any other account in Outlook, you can force one (incoming) account (exchange corp mail for this example), to drop it's incoming mail into another account's email folder (.ost, .pst, etc.).

So the key to supporting corp/exchange email sync to your phone via hotmail as a conduit is to point your corp mail account to the hotmail folders for delivery.

In essence, the hotmail account becomes a container for the corp mail and calendar events.

Conceivably, you could even set up this same PC running Outlook to pull any/all other email accounts via IMAP/pop, etc., and do likewise: drop inbound into the hotmail account folders.
Then you could, depending on your needs, just use one account (hotmail) on the android device for a single unified inbox (a term already in use in the android native messaging environment).

I too am a blackberry emigre, and for email / calendar, etc., it's bizarre that the major players (M$/Google/are there any others?? ) haven't jumped on the bandwagon to deliver a 'desktop redirector' app to replace the one lost by leaving BB.
This has taken countless hours of my life to get something working, today only partially (email forwarded through Google gmail (even with my own corp. apps account) still gets re-written envelope headers which damages the return path), I'll try the hotmail possibly as another tangent. Full reply ability will be a key factor that again the BB / desktop redirector, and BB Internet Service (push email) provided, and for which I've found no equal yet.
The bleeding edge stinks sometimes... wait a minute... android has been out for what 4-5 years now??? and no redirector??? 'shaking head and baffled beyond belief' = SHaB3

For the record, I HATE using the cloud for anything - a bit old fashioned... maybe - especially since i've worked on networks for 15 years and work for [the #3 in the world] datacenter / cloud equipment vendor (CCO). But once the data leaves your desktop, and sneaks out from behind our puny little home office front-line firewall routers, you have ZERO control and there is ZERO accountability in the 'interweb' domain (someone else used that term and i like it).

Might also be a forewarning - be sure to read your corp. email / messaging / mobility policy document to confirm if forwarding corp. email to an internet service is acceptable... it's may be grounds for dismissal.

Cheers.

 

[Miami_Son]

Anyone know how to convert a Facebook contact on the phone to also be a Corporate contact so that it will be synced to Outlook?

BTW, I upgraded to Office 2010 and my rules are now working, but I still don't get the audio notification of new mail.

 

[MB17]

First and foremost, thanks to RazzMaTazz for posting this solution.

I tried MyPhoneExplorer and Companionlink with various big levels of frustration (as much as I simphatize with MPE for being free and all) and this solution is working almost perfectly. In some ways, it works better than the old active sync because I don't even have to connect my phone to the PC to get it synced. THANKS!

My only grip is when I create an appointment in Outlook and then change it on Droid. Then the change is never reflected on the PC. So, after creating the meeting at Outlook, it appears on the Droid. But if I change, say the date or the hour of the meeting on the Droid, this change does not sync back to Outlook. Anyone can help? Do you experience the same behavior?

I appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

[MB17]

Perhaps this may help others.

I tried to migrate exporting my contacts to a csv file as other people did, but was not successful at first, and this process has its limitations. Also, when you export in bunks, you don't know which contacts will be changed due to the restrictions in size of the hotmail contacts. I ended up doing the following:

1 - after creating the hotmail account in Outlook, I opened two instances of Outlook. One had the list view of all my contacts in the old account. The other had the new contact list in the hotmail account (empty so far).
2 - I select from the old account a bunch of my contacts at a time, say 30 each time.
3 - Drag the selected contacts to the hotmail contacts window (it will delete the contact fromthe old account. you can copy and paste I guess).
4 - Whenever there is a problem of a field in the contact having more characters than allowed, Outlook warns you which field is not good, and asks for what to do. You can then cancel the process and easily discover which field is wrong in the contact and correct it.

This may give some hand work, but in the end you know you did not lose at all any information you may need, and you do a clean start with your contacts.

I had 1.100 contacts and it took me a couple of hours, but was worth the trouble. If you do the other methods and come up with some issues you may end up losing pretty much the same time without having control on the export of your contacts.

Hope this helps.

 

[Miami_Son]

Another issue I've noticed since adopting this method is that the junk mail that Hotmail did such a good job of filtering out and never sending me is now showing up in my Deleted Items folder. Not a big deal, but before I never even had to see it. It didn't download at all. Any clues as to why it now is?

 

[RazzMaTazz]

My only gripe is when I create an appointment in Outlook and then change it on Droid. Then the change is never reflected on the PC. So, after creating the meeting at Outlook, it appears on the Droid. But if I change, say the date or the hour of the meeting on the Droid, this change does not sync back to Outlook. Anyone can help? Do you experience the same behavior?

I am not experiencing that behavior. When I create a calendar event on on my Android device, or when I change a calendar event on my Android device that was originally created in Outlook, the new or edited event is synchronized back to my Outlook PCs. (I'm using the stock calendar app on an LG Optimus S, with stock Android 2.2.)

 

[Miami_Son]

I seem to be having an issue with contact photos. If I join a FB contact to a Corporate contact on the phone, shouldn't that contact photo be synced to Hotmail and eventually Outlook? It isn't. And if I add a photo to a contact in Outlook it should eventually appear on the phone, right? They aren't. Also, contact photos never show up in my Windows Live (Hotmail) contacts.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

I seem to be having an issue with contact photos. If I join a FB contact to a Corporate contact on the phone, shouldn't that contact photo be synced to Hotmail and eventually Outlook? It isn't. And if I add a photo to a contact in Outlook it should eventually appear on the phone, right? They aren't. Also, contact photos never show up in my Windows Live (Hotmail) contacts.

As I mention in my original post...

At this point, contact thumbnail photos, URLs, IM address & Job titles are not synchronized. You can input those fields in Outlook and you can input them on your phone, but they are not synchronized between Outlook and your phone.