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Seeking advice on syncing Outlook contacts and calendar with iPhone post iTunes 12

Using Windows 10; iTunes 12.3/0/44 64 bit; iPhone 5s; Asus Zenbook laptop; Microsoft Outlook 2013.


Post iTunes 12 you no long sync Outlook contacts and calendar via iTunes (a system that had worked just fine for me, by the way, Apple), but via iCloud. Because I am an attorney and have highly confidential information on my devices I have generally tried to avoid online syncing / backup, etc. I like to keep my data right on my desk where I'm the one in control of security. But since the change to iTunes 12 appeared to leave me more choice, I went ahead and activated my iCloud account for the first time and tried to use it to sync my Microsoft Outlook data to my iPhone and iPad. It didn't work for me. I have 5 - 6 different email accounts accessed by Outlook, including both IMAP and Exchange Server (.ost). The software doesn't seem to give you control over which Outlook data files are the ones that iCloud uses to sync with. It wanted to sync with my .ost account, which is an account from a university I no longer attend, that will probably go away within 6 months (the account, not the university). I wanted iCloud and my phone and iPad contacts and calendar to sync with a .pst file which I have designated in Outlook as the main data store, and therefore my main repository for contacts and calendar.


Any suggestions on how to make this happen? For now, since it was not working for me anyway, I turned off the iCloud syncing. No reason to push confidential information up into the cloud if it's not going to help me sync anyway.


My inability to sync Microsoft Outlook calendar to the iPhone is a significant issue for me. I used to rely heavily on my phone to have an up to date picture of my appointments when I was away from the computer. Now I can't. I feel like I've been set back about 20 years. If I want an up to date calendar to carry with me, maybe I need to get a paper appointment book. I wonder if anyone has ever done a rigorous research study of efficiency gain / loss due to annual software company tinkering with software that was working fine for customers, with resulting consumer re-education time, new bugs, etc. etc. I wonder if there is a marketing opportunity there for a software maker who would promise not to fix things that ain't broke more than once every 10 years or so, just make changes necessitated by operating system and hardware developments, etc.

iPhone 5s, iTunes for Windows; Outlook 2013

Posted on Oct 5, 2015 4:01 PM

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Seeking advice on syncing Outlook contacts and calendar with iPhone post iTunes 12

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