You have a work account and a personal account on one phone. You save a client from your work email. Later you look for them in your personal account, and they are not there. Or the same person shows up twice in your contacts.
Your phone is not broken. It shows the contacts of each account side by side. It never copies a contact from one account to another.
Why contacts don't sync between your work and personal accounts
Each account keeps its own contacts. Google keeps them in Google Contacts, Microsoft in Outlook and Apple in iCloud. Your phone signs in to each account and reads its contacts. Then it lists them all in one Contacts app.
That list looks like one address book. It is not. Each contact still belongs to one account. When you save or edit a contact, the change goes to that account only.
Google, Microsoft and Apple each sync contacts with their own account. None of them copies contacts to the others.
- Personal GooglePersonal GoogleSarah Chen
- Work Microsoft 365Work Microsoft 365Sarah Chen
- iCloudiCloudSarah Chen
What this looks like on your phone
- A contact is missing from one account. You saved a client from your work email. Your personal Gmail does not have them.
- The same person shows up twice. They are saved in 2 accounts, and your phone lists both.
- A call shows a number, not a name. The contact is in an account your phone does not read. See why your phone shows a number, not a name.
- One account has an old number. You fixed the number in one account. The other account still has the old one.
What you can set on your phone today
These settings do not copy contacts between accounts. They make sure your phone reads every account, and that new contacts go where you look for them.
On an iPhone
These are Apple's steps for contact accounts and the default account. Do them in this order.
Check which accounts have contacts on
Open the Settings app. Tap Apps, then tap Contacts. Tap Contacts Accounts and open each account. Check that Contacts is on. Your phone shows no contacts from an account where it is off.
Choose the default account
Go back to Settings › Apps › Contacts and tap Default Account. Choose the account you use most. New contacts you save on your phone go there.
Link the cards for the same person
Open one of the 2 contacts and tap Edit. Tap Link Contacts and choose the other card. Your iPhone now shows the 2 cards as one contact.
Apple says linked contacts aren't merged. Each account keeps its own card. Linking changes what your iPhone shows. It does not add the contact to your other account. To merge cards in Apple Contacts, read how to remove duplicate contacts in iCloud.
On an Android phone
For your work contacts in the Outlook app, turn on Sync contacts in the app's settings. The steps are in why your phone shows a number, not a name.
What these settings don't fix
The settings above change what your phone shows and where new contacts go. None of them copies a contact to your other account. A client you save on your phone is still missing from your work email on your laptop. A number you fix in one account stays old in the other.
You can also save every contact in one account and stop saving in the other. It works until you save someone from the wrong mailbox. Then you have 2 contacts again.
CardDAV address books, such as Fastmail, Zoho Mail and Nextcloud, work the same way. See how to remove duplicate contacts in CardDAV address books.
To have the same contacts in both accounts, something has to read both accounts and write to both.
How ContactZapp syncs your work and personal contacts
ContactZapp connects your Google, Microsoft, Apple and CardDAV accounts. It syncs your contacts both ways between them. Save a client in your work account and they are added to your personal account at the next sync. Fix a number in one account and the other gets it too.
Sync every hour, every day or manually. There is no app to install. Your phone gets the contacts through the account it already syncs with.
ContactZapp also finds the same person in both accounts. To merge by hand, we show the contacts side by side and suggest the values to keep. A backup of each account is taken before ContactZapp first writes to it. You can undo any change or merge for 12 months.
To merge the people already saved twice, read how to merge contacts across accounts. For Gmail and Outlook, read how to sync contacts between Google and Microsoft 365.
FAQ
Why are my contacts not syncing between my work and personal accounts? Accounts do not sync with each other. Your phone shows the contacts of each account together, but a contact stays in the account where you saved it. To have it in both accounts, you need a tool that syncs them.
Is it a mistake in how I set up my phone? No. A phone that shows several accounts at once is working as designed. Adding a second account does not make the 2 accounts share contacts.
Why do I see the same contact twice on my phone? The same person is saved in 2 accounts, and your phone lists both. On an iPhone you can link the 2 cards so they show as one contact. Linking does not merge them.
Where do new contacts go on my iPhone? To the default account. Set it in Settings › Apps › Contacts › Default Account.
Can a phone sync iCloud and Google contacts with each other? No. It shows both accounts but does not copy contacts from one to the other. ContactZapp syncs your contacts both ways between your accounts, so a contact saved in one is added to the other.