How to prevent Windows Phone 8 from syncing contacts

Question

I have noticed that without a Microsoft account, I can't download free apps from the store.

How can I use a Microsoft account only for the store, without it syncing anything else (contacts, etc) with the cloud?

Answer 1

To stop the phone from syncing, this is what I've figured out:

1. Go to People App

2. Open settings from the bottom bar

3. Scroll to the bottom and select your account

4. Scroll to the bottom and change Server to 127.0.0.1

5. Save the changes

Caveat: It is important to note that this may break other functionality that uses the account such as 'Find my Phone' and the ability to store purchased apps online (or at least proof of purchase)

Answer 2

You're the same person I answered to yesterday, right? I'm sorry that I was wrong.

It's frustrating that I don't have a Windows Phone 8 device to check, but I think you'll be able to find such an option where you choose how often data is synced.

For people who want to go easy on their data connection, there's an option like this on every smartphone. Or if there isn't one in Windows Phone 8, it's a huge thing they've forgotten there.

For example, for email, you'd have:

When to sync mail:

• As it arrives
• Every 5 minutes
• Every 30 minutes
• Every hour
• Every day
• Manually/Never

There should be the same kind of option for contacts.

You should be able to set it so it's "synced" with your Microsoft account, but you have to say when it's synced. Then it'd be synced once (and if you really don't want the info on their servers, you can just delete it from Outlook.com or such after the first and last sync), and then you're in control, and decide when to ask it to sync. And then you just don't ask it to sync, ever. And now your contacts should be on your phone only forever waiting to be synced.

Answer 3

Steps to take.

1. Get into your phone settings
2. select Email+account
3. Select Microsoft account
4. Scroll down to "server" and input 127.0.0.1
5. select the tick and return to start screen.
6. Hit people tile and go to settings(the three dots bottom right corner)
7. select "filter my contact list" then ensure the checkbox is selected for Hotmail or whatever microsoft account is listed.

Accept the changes and you're done.