Outlook has suddenly and unexpectedly re-formatted My Contact notes

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Hello @Lee Phillips

I would like to first clarify that this is a user‑to‑user support forum. Moderators here are not Microsoft Support, so we don’t have backend access or the ability to perform escalations. However, we’re happy to help with troubleshooting guidance and best‑practice recommendations.

Based on your description, I suppose the text "[Discarded values from merge]" appears to be related to contact merge or reconciliation information that may have been written into the Notes field. Since all contacts were updated at the same time, it is worth checking whether the change exists only in Outlook Desktop or is also present in the mailbox data.

As a first step, please check Outlook on the web using the same Education account. Open People from the left pane, then open a few contacts and review the Notes field.

• If the Notes look normal on the web, the problem may be limited to your local Outlook data. In that case, we can try rebuilding the Outlook OST file or create new Outlook profile to test.
• If the Notes contain the same unusual text on the web, the data may have already been written to the mailbox and will likely need to be cleaned there. With 300+ contacts, manual editing is not practical. Exporting to CSV is possible, but it carries some risk because Notes fields do not always import and export cleanly. If you would like to try this approach, please do so with care. I recommend testing with only 5-10 contacts first before processing the entire contact list.

1. Export your Contacts to a CSV file (File > Open & Export > Import/Export).
2. Open the file in Excel and carefully review and clean the Notes column.
3. Test with only 5-10 contacts first before performing a full import.
4. When re-importing, choose the option that avoids creating duplicate contacts.

Alternatively, please check with your school's IT Helpdesk to see whether a backup of the Contacts folder taken before 9:14 AM is available. If so, restoring from that backup would likely be the cleanest option.

Hope this helps. I look forward to your reply.

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