Skype for Business contacts folder removal

Question

Skype for Business contacts folder removal

Nikolay Evdokimov 1

Hello,

We have just correctly uninstalled Skyper for Business from our infrastructure but have noticed that local contacts folder "Skype for Business contacts" still present in each mailbox which was SfB enabled. And it is impossible to delete this folder by hand - removal option is greyed out.

Could you please suggest how to delete this folder from Exchange mailboxes. We use Exchange Server 2013 CU 21 fully on-prem.

Thank you in advance!

Nikolay

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Sharon Zhao-MSFT 25,761 Microsoft External Staff

@Nikolay Evdokimov ,

Administrator could deprecation pf Skype for Business Contacts folder in Outlook and Outlook Web App by using a new client policy GPO entry, EnableExchangeContactsFolder, by setting its value to $false.

For more details, please refer to this article.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Nikolay Evdokimov 1 Reputation point

2021-05-19T10:16:41.547+00:00

Dear SharonZhao-MSFT,

Thank you for your answer! However I already read this article and set this flag already to $false when SfB infrastructure was in place.

While it worked for Outlook Web App interface, the folder is still visible in all mailboxes in Outlook. Is it possible to hide/delete it from outlook views as well?

Best regards,
Nikolay
Sharon Zhao-MSFT 25,761 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2021-05-21T06:58:53.527+00:00

@Nikolay Evdokimov ,

It recommends you recreate the Outlook profile and recheck it.

If no luck, try the following steps to manually hidden the contact folder.

1.Download MFCMAPI in this link and install MFCMapi.exe.

2.Then log on with your account and edit PR_ATTR_HIDDEN value as below:
Sharon Zhao-MSFT 25,761 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2021-05-26T07:34:46.62+00:00

@Nikolay Evdokimov ,
Do you try this method?
If the suggestion helps, please be free to mark it as an answer for helping more people.
Sharon Zhao-MSFT 25,761 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2021-05-28T08:29:51.883+00:00

@Nikolay Evdokimov ,
Haven't received your update for a long time, any update now?
If the above suggestion helps, please be free to mark it as answer for helping more people.
Michael D Taylor 1 Reputation point

2022-04-05T08:06:18.243+00:00

Hey @Sharon Zhao-MSFT , I followed your advice and can hide 'Skype for Business Contacts' in Outlook Desktop, but whenever I add an iOS Exchange account (Microsoft 365), I still see 'Skype for Business Contacts' come through in Contacts -> Groups. The account in question is Microsoft 365 and we do not use/need Skype for Business. Anyway to get rid of this completely, so it doesn't appear in iOS Contacts -> Groups?
Michael D Taylor 1 Reputation point

2022-04-05T08:20:30.357+00:00

Actually, new day, new try. When turned off MAPI caching (saw it in GitHub), and then did the same action, it now seems to have worked!
fgc 11 Reputation points

2023-03-09T14:23:43.79+00:00

A customer of mine already removed completely the Skype-for-Business server infrastructure - so I guess that "Set-CsClientPolicy" is no longer available. Nevertheless most of the Outlook clients are having the SfB-Contacts folders with hundreds of entries they want to get rid off.

Is there an "administrative" way to do so?

Share via

Skype for Business contacts folder removal

1 answer

Your answer