Keep iPhone contacts seperate from Exchange contacts

[Matic]

I tried to search the forum, but could not find what I was looking for.

My iPhone is set up on a work Exchange server and it is syncing mail, contacts, and calendars. Right now in Exchange, I have all of my Personal AND Business contacts. I would rather not have my Personal contacts in Outlook (Exchange), but do want my Business contacts there and for them to sync.

Is there a way to keep these separate? Ideally, Exchange would sync my Business contacts ONLY and then my personal contacts are stored in the iPhone. However, ALL contacts are available (business or personal) to me in the iPhone.

Is this possible? So far it seems that if you sync contacts at all from Exchange, it will wipe out any personal contacts you have stored locally on the iPhone. And it seems this is possible with MobileMe. But what about without MobileMe?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rich]

The best solution I found without using a third party contacts App was to simply create groups within Outlook.

Right-click on Contacts in Outlook, select New Folder and give it a name. Move all of your Personal contacts to this new folder. All of your contacts from both the main Contacts folder and the new folder will be listed on the iPhone (after syncing of course) when you open Contacts.

Tapping the Groups button in the upper left corner will allow you to select a single group, or folder.

 

[Matic]

Thanks Rich, that's what I have set up now. I was trying to figure out how to not have my personal contacts in Exchange at all.

 

[Rich]

There's a third party app called Groups [iTunes Link]. In their "Important Notes & Known issues" section in the App store they state the following:

* Exchange servers or Google Sync will not sync back groups created with Groups

Perhaps you could use that feature (and I use the word feature loosely) to your advantage? Create a group using Groups and move your personal contacts to it. If it works as they say, that group, along with your personal contacts, won't be synced back to your Exchange account.

I've never actually used the application but was thinking of trying it before I learned about the folder/group option that I described above.