Block Syncing of Personal Phone Contacts in GAL through Social Connector
I have received a question on Exchange 2013 about the syncing of personal contacts in Outlook on GAL. For example, a user that has their own personal iPhone contact were uploaded to GAL. Obviously, a lot of users don’t like that (having their personal contacts loaded into the company directory).
During the research on ‘How do I block or stop the syncing of personal contacts with Exchange 2013 so they do not show up in outlook?’ I have found as ‘Social Connectors‘ are playing the game and automatic update of contacts are enabled by default.
How to change the settings?
In Outlook 2013 Social Network Account can be seen here:
In Outlook 2010: Go to View-> People->Account Settings->Settings button. Change the option from ‘Update without prompting’ to ‘Prompt before update’ or ‘Never update’
In Outlook 2003 or 2007: Account Settings can found at Tools, Social Networking Account settings
The registry settings are found at the following section:
Outlook 2013
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\SocialConnectorDWORD: RunAutomaticGALSyncPossible Values: 0 (Never Sync) 1 (Update without Prompt) 2 (Prompt to sync) |
Outlook 2010
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\SocialConnectorDWORD: ScheduleContactGALSyncPossible Values: 0 (Never Sync) 1 (Update without Prompt) 2 (Prompt to sync) |
Bulk Operation
We were talking about individual accounts and most of the time it requires to work on multiple users and GPO is the way for that. Change the Outlook settings via GPO will help.
The GPO can be found as applied at the following section:
Outlook –> Outlook Social Connector-> Block Global Address List synchronization
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\outlook\socialconnectorDWORD: disablecontactgalsyncValue: 1 (no sync)
I did not know that you could set OSC to prompt for GAL sync. Great Post!
Hi
Not sure how to get the print screen you have shown above, in Outlook 2013. Could you please give some fool proof advice for getting there?
Many thanks,
Jessie
Hi Jessie,
Thanks for your question. You may access the menu as follows:
1. Open Outlook 2013 and click on the File menu in the top left corner.
2. The Info tab will open by default and at the top you’ll see an Account Settings box. Click that.
3. In the pop-up you’ll see an option for Social Network Accounts. Click that.
Hope you are now ready to rock with Outlook 2013
Thanks,
Manu
Hi, I have Office 2016. It does not show “and social networking” with account settings.
Where should I go from there?