WAB Cleaner wipe out duplicates and old contacts,contacts manager for outlook&outlook express

Maintenance tool for Windows® Address Book (WAB) under Windows® ME and higher

This program is useful to remove lots of old, obsolete contacts and duplicates from the WAB, to print selected parts or the complete table of contents. It is not a fully automatic WAB cleaner, but it helps the user in cleaning the WAB and keeping it up-to-date, compact and lean.

Screenshot

(Actual version may differ from this screenshot)

Unique Features

Select WAB launch open dialog to select different WAB files

Delete selected entry or entries all entries marked by the cursor or mouse in the table are deleted directly in the WAB. Setting the option Confirm every deletion will allow canceling the deletion of individual items. If this option is unchecked, the confirmation dialog is displayed only once at start of a block to be deleted. Deletions are made in the table as well as in the WAB. To show changes made in WAB, the refresh button must be clicked.
Deletion can also be performed by pressing the Delete key on keyboard.

Show details launches the standard details dialog for the selected entry.

Find people button launches the standard find people dialog for the WAB opened.

Print table All will print the complete table; Selection will print only the selected cells. Selections are made by keeping the Shift key pressed while using the cursor keys.

Option Open default WAB upon start load immediately the contents of default WAB. This option is set by default to enable fast working access.

Tool Mark Full Duplicates look for duplicates and mark them red. Full Duplicates are considered entries that have the same name and E-mail address. If only one property is matching, the entries are not full duplicates. To find such partial duplicates use Tool Mark Duplicates for Selected Column only. After looking for duplicates the table is sorted by the third column (Display name).

Tool Mark Duplicates for Selected Column only find only duplicates in the column that has been selected after clicking the column header. The duplicates are marked red but not deleted. To delete such partial duplicates, any row may be selected manually and deleted by clicking Entry | Delete.

Tool Remove Full Duplicates find and delete all full duplicates without asking for confirmation.

Sorting the table by any column sort the table in ascending or descending order by clicking on the column header. When characters are sorted, the order is case sensitive always.

Show Entry IDs the Entry ID is a unique multiple byte binary identifier that is used by the WAB interface to store and retrieve entries. It is displayed as integer value in the table.

Cleaning method

Before using the program always make a copy of the WAB file!

The WAB can be copied by opening it in Windows and selecting File | Export | Address Book.

Removing obsolete (old) contacts

Open the contents table and sort by modification date. If contacts have been imported into the WAB from other sources, this date is the date of import and not the creation date, however. Uncheck the option Confirm every deletion. Mark at least one of the cells in rows containing obsolete contacts and click the delete button.

Removing Duplicates

It is very unlikely that duplicates are contained in the WAB. Only if the built in filter method does not work, duplicates can be entered into the WAB. In any case, they can be found and removed by the WAB Cleaner.

Duplicates may, however, result from sharing a WAB by users with different identities. In this case, care must be exercised to not delete duplicates that might be used by another user! For detailed information on this topic please refer to the following very interesting and useful link:

http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/files/wab.htm

Tom Koch explains:

With the presence of hidden folders it sometimes happens that duplicate contacts end up being stored in the WAB. This is not really a serious problem, but it can be confusing to type in a name in a new message, only to be presented a dialogue asking to choose between 2 identical contacts. To view all contacts in all folders, regardless of which Identity is currently logged on, click Start| Run and type wab /a. If needed, click View| Folders and Groups to see the folders. You can now find any duplicates and move them to the Shared Contacts folder, rather than in each Identity's folder.

Multiple identities

If Outlook Express is used with multiple identities the address book shows only two folders: Shared Contacts and the current identitys contacts. The other identitys contacts are hidden to the user. This is different when the address book is opened directly in Windows explorer. In this case, all identities are shown. The WAB Cleaner shows also the contacts from all identities.

File data

Platform: Windows 95/98/ME/XP, Outlook Express 5 5, 5.01or 5.50, Outlook Express 6
(other platforms have not yet been tested, but are very likely to support this software as well.)

Initial Version: 1.0.0 Beta test version, developed under Microsoft Outlook Express 5.5 with the build number 5.50.4133.2400. Released: May 5, 2004

Version history: 1.0.0.3, released December 1, 2004

Current version: 1.0.0.7, released April 7,2006, Bugfix for number of items in trial, Print preview and settings added.

File size: approx. 560 KB, compressed setup file for automatic installation and uninstalling.

Maximum number of contacts in WAB: 10.000 in full version, 100 in trial.

Trial period: 21 days of effective use.

Registration

After the trial period, a registration fee of $ 20.- per license is to be paid.

Please make payment online by PayPal (this service is free of charge for the buyer):

Support

Please contact: E-mail

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Note

Windows, Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, USA

We owe great thanks to all users for suggestions and bug reports! They have helped already to improve this software.

Date of publishing: May 5, 2004.
Last revision: January 31, 2008.