Tips & Tricks // iPhone PIM conflict resolution

Posting my email to a friend re: resolving conflicts in iPhone contacts and Outlook (or another program). 

Sorry for the long email. 

This happens when you have multiple locations of contacts for your iPhone. This may also occur when the device you are syncing uses fields that are not supported by the program you are syncing too. In this example:
 
Twitter and iPhone are not supported by outlook and will be left out. When you sync it may be possible that some of your contacts have fields like these and are not being synced bec the program thinks it's empty.
 

 

 
What you can do is rebuild.
 
Step 1: backup your outlook contacts. Export as pst or windows csv. Pst format = container keeps caller ID photos. Csv does not.
 
Delete the pst in outlook or make it point to a new one. This is now empty.
 
Step 2:  fix your contacts on iPhone, make sure you use basic fields like:
 

Mobile

Email 3

Home 2

Work 2

Car

Note

Birthday

Anniversary

Make sure you are saving to iPhone and not to another location.

For me it's iCloud you should have iPhone selected.

Step 3: disable automatic sync in iTunes preferences, devices tab.

Step 4: Connect to iTunes. Do a manual backup of iPhone.

Step 5: Sync, your iPhone should copy over fixed contacts to an empty Outlook pst.

Step 6: check iPhone and Outlook for missing fields or contacts. Once everything is to your liking. Backup another set of pst and csv.

Step 7: go to info tab in iTunes. Scroll down & tick replace all contacts in next sync. This should wipe contacts on all locations on the iPhone and sync it to just 1 location on the device. 

Be sure you have all contacts in outlook before doing this. 

Step 8: (optional) grab the csv in step 6 and import into gmail so you have a backup of contacts in the cloud. 

HTH.