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I have a Nokia Lumia 920 running Windows Phone 8, however, I can't seem to find a way to add contacts to my phone without going through Microsoft's cloud services.

I want my contacts stored locally and not be recorded in a server. How can I achieve this?

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In Windows Phone 8, it is possible for an app to create contacts in it's own contact store. These will be deleted if the app is removed. I don't know if there are any limitations on these contacts.

It is also possible read most, if not all, of the contact information on your phone.

With these two API's, it should be possible to create an app that copies your existing contacts, and provides them trough it's own Contact-store. After this it should be possible to delete the original contacts. I don't know if you can add contacts trough the People-hub directly, but you would at least be able to trough the app.

I couldn't find any existing app that does this, but at least it should be possible to create one.

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If you're worried that your contacts will require access to the Internet to be used, rest assured. Not everyone even has a data plan. Of course your contacts are also on your phone.

If you just don't want them to have your contacts because of you're worried about your privacy, know that 1. I think you're worrying too much and 2. if you can't find any option for it, then it's probably not possible to disable it.

Unless you're blind. Don't worry, it happens to everyone, and very often to me, to be blind. In that case, if the option exists, and if Windows Phone 8 is anything like Windows 8 for PCs, it should be in the settings for the contacts app, in Accounts. You can either remove an account or uncheck "contacts" where there's a list of what to sync.

Then you could try "forgetting" to input a Microsoft account. They can't sync anything if you don't give them one, right?

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  • Are there any disadvantages to not associating a microsoft account with the phone about which I should know?
    – user912
    Jan 8, 2013 at 6:39
  • Uhm, I don't think so. Apart from the obvious fact that you won't have anything syncing. No syncing of email, contacts, calendar, etc. And probably a bit of annoyance, because I have a feeling your phone will often suggest that you give it an account. But I don't think you'll get aberrations like no contacts at all or no calendar at all. It should all work, but just locally. Email might be an issue, because it might decide to link an account entirely when you just wanted to see your email, but you can go around that by reading email in the browser, or with a third party app.
    – Ariane
    Jan 8, 2013 at 6:47
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    Won't be able to purchase apps from the app store
    – Wayne In Yak
    Jan 15, 2013 at 18:59
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It depends where you have your existing contacts and how many. The fastest workaround is to use your old phone with the contacts and import them to the SIM card. After you have them on your SIM:

Put the SIM card containing your contacts into your new phone.

On Start Start icon, tap People People icon.

Tap More More icon, and then tap Settings.

Tap Import SIM contacts, and then do one of the following:

To import all of the contacts on your SIM card, tap Import.
If you want to select contacts to import individually, tap Clear, select the contacts you want to import, and then tap Import.

if you don't have the contacts on your old phone you can use one of the cheap SIM card readers to connect it to a PC - example enter link description here

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It looks like Akruto Sync for Windows phone is what you're looking for. Akruto program provides a direct, two-way, cloud-free sync of contacts, calendar, and tasks between PC and windows phone. It will sync your data over the cellular network or over Wi-Fi. http://www.akruto.com/f-a-q/

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  • I don't want to sync anything, I just want to store the contacts locally, without any applications sending them across the internet.
    – user912
    Jan 25, 2013 at 4:31
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Take a look at an App called MY People. From their description "My People allows you to have contacts in your phone but not in your Live account... users want to have contacts such as their landlord or favorite pizza restaurant... " The only caveat is that My People contacts are not embedded as part of the WP8 people app.

NOTE: I have no relation to this app other then the desire to add contacts that are not associated with some social network.

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  • My people seems to be a completely separate app just for storing phone numbers. It does not use the contacts api, so incoming calls from these numbers will not be resolved to a name.
    – Gerald Schneider
    Sep 1, 2014 at 9:03

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