Turn off Suggested Contact sync

I believe I've found the solution to this problem, in iOS 6 it is possible to hide groups of contacts. One of these groups is called "Suggested contacts". Uploaded a small guide, hopefully this will solve your problems: http://hayaku.se/?p=63

So, I still have issues with syncing of "suggested contacts". Well I used the solution by HayakuSWE, but actually when using apps like "WHatsapp" or similar, all contacts appear. These apps seem to not work with groups.

Anyone have a new solution to this issue? (I really liked it on the droid)

I can't believe this is happening, and I can't believe that after so many months the issue still goes on and on... Like Nolleck said, depending on what you do, the option "Suggested contacts" gets automatically selected, and there you go again!! This is utterly annoying.

This is painful and typical of Apple getting too clever! What makes this really frustrating is that I now have 'suggested contacts' in my directory on my car phone! I'ved tried to check 'Contacts' on the Group tab on the phone so that only my contacts are visible but I still get a list of suggested contacts pulling through to the car directory. Apple sort this out, I never asked for it!!!

This worked to hide them on my Iphone. The OCD part of me really wants to delete them and not have them taking up memory on my iphone. I have Outlook 2010 via Exchange and I don't see the suggested contacts in my Outlook contact list at all, just in my iphone.

They are indeed in your Outlook/Exchange. They are the contacts you have exchanged emails with, but you haven't yet made them one of your contacts. That's my case at least.

You can go in through Outlook Web Access: go to the contacts icon in the lower left, you should see suggested contacts, from here you can right-click and delete the suggested contacts folder, Outlook won't let you delete the folder...

hi all - fix below (worked for me)

go to contacts > groups> then click on contacts in the exchange section. Only the contacts will be ticked. this will only sync your designated outlook contacts (not suggested contacts)

ciao.

Something I found was that my company Exchange Account setup under Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendars did not have Contacts turned ON. Although the suggested contacts were populating with it turned OFF.

What I could not see before turning this ON, was the All Exchange, Contacts, Suggested Contacts or Exchange Global Address List normally found in Contacts > Groups. After turning the setting ON (Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendars) , I could then uncheck the All Exchange, Contacts, Suggested Contacts groups found within Contacts > Groups.

After I did all this I went back to Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendars and turned Contacts turned OFF for the account. It prompted me to confirm deletion of the contacts stored on my iphone for this account. I said yes!

I rebooted my phone and waited for the Exchange Service to cycle/sync a while and now all the company contacts, suggested contacts, etc. are not populating as before.

Its likely that one should not have to do the last step I mentioned as if the address books are unchecked in Contacts > Group, one might think these would not show up anyway. However, I took the next step when doing it myself and it works - so far!

Hope this helps - instead of adding to the applesania!

iiwii

I'm hijacking this old thread because it ranks highly in a related search.

If your iPhone is showing the dreaded Suggested Contacts you have a couple options:

1) My preferred option is to disable and delete the suggested contacts from Outlook. Note that if you're using Outlook 2013, the Suggested Contacts feature has apparently been deprecated and there is no longer an option to turn it off because it no longer exists - you'll just need to consider deleting the folder if you have it. But if you're using an older version of Outlook, you can turn off Suggested Contacts in File > Options > Contacts and turn off the option to automatically create contacts (at the bottom.) If you don't turn off this feature and you delete the folder, the folder will be recreated and start populating again.

Once this is turned off (or if you're using Outlook 2013) you need to delete the folder or its contents (either will work). In Outlook 2013, it should be noted that this folder is no longer visible in the People view like it was in Outlook 2010's Contacts view. So for Outlook 2013 you'll need to switch to the Folders view to delete this folder or its contents.

2) Another option is to simply hide the contacts on your iPhone. When viewing a list of contacts in the Phone or Contacts apps, you can tap the Groups button in the upper left and uncheck the Suggested Contacts group to hide them. This filtering is a bit ephemeral. In my experience it will forget this when the app is fully closed or the phone is restarted.

Note that there is no way to choose which contact folders will sync between your Exchange server and your iPhone. This is just like you not being able to choose which email folders or calendars will sync. This is pretty typical and if you don't like it you'll have to use iTunes to sync with Outlook instead as I believe this does give you the option to pick folders (but I haven't done it in years.)

Thank you!! Changing to the Folders view in Outlook 2013 and removing all Suggested Contacts was the ANSWER to this problem for me. 🙂

Grateful thanks for this simple explanation. My contacts groups was polluted with these undesirable suggested contacts automatically included on the I-Phone/I-Pad contacts.

This was easy! Would they not be coming back?