Hai Sa'ad (The life saver)you remember me?You bailed me out of having contacts duplication due to syncronization with my baby J with outlook.I followed all the pricedure you told me upto No5 but the problem is how do i sort the unwanted contacts to delete them?do i select for example those under alpharbet S e.g sa'ad to delete them and so on and so forth,how can i see them all without the tideous job of selecting them from one alphabet to another?I just want to delete all of them at one go!Thanks.I have Xp home edition and i run Outlook 2003.My main concern is how to carry on in no5 underneath.



1. Keep your JJ syncrhronized with your desktop outlook at all times.
2. Open DT (desktop) Outlook and go to the deleted folder and empty it completely.
3. On the DT Outlook, go to contacts. Under veiw menu, current view, choose phone list.
4. Under veiw menu again, choose customize current view, fields, and from the select available fields from, choose all appointment fields. In the upper Available fields, choose created, and then click on Add in the middle of the dialog box. Click ok, and return back to the contact list on Outlook.
5. Now, in the upper fields, sort according to the created field; which is the top heading of each column. You can see all your contacts that have been created as of today's (or yesterday's) date. Select them, they should be something around 800 contacts as you said and delete them.

The above steps assumes that you have DT Outlook XP or 2002, if you have another version, then try to do the same idea. Creat a "created" field and sort according to that and deleted contacts that have been created with the most recent date.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Abdu dodo,

Hi Abdu Dodo, Of course I remember you. How can I forget my ambassador in Nigeria. You invited me there one day...If I will come, I must meet you

Now, as for point number 5, you are right. The early process has a minor adjustment.

Points 1, 2, 3 remains the same:

1. Keep your JJ syncrhronized with your desktop outlook at all times.

2. Open DT (desktop) Outlook and go to the deleted folder and empty it completely.

3. On the DT Outlook, go to contacts. Under veiw menu, current view, choose phone list.

Now:

4. On your DT outlook, go to your contacts. On the view menu, click on current view>By Phone List.

5. DT outlook, under the same view menu,Current view>Customize current view>Fields.
Change the "Select available fields from" to "All Appointment fields" and on the left pane, scroll down till you find "created". Highlight it and make it blue then click on the Add-> botton in the middle of the dialog box. Now you will see the "created" field in the right pane. Highlihgt it and move it up as much as you can and make it the first field. Click ok, to go back to the same dialog box "View Summary"

6. Now click on "sort...", and under the "Select availble fields from" drop list, change it to " All appointment fields". Now on the top, "sort items by" drop list, choose created, and mark it , as Descending, click Ok...then OK.

7. Now you have all your contacts sorted according to the date they were created. Highligh All the contacts which have been created on the day you got your contacts duplicated and delete them.

P.S. Let's say on Jan 1, 2006 you have noticed that all your 800 contacts have became 1600 after a mistake that you did on that day. In this case, deleted all contacts that have been created on Jan 1, 2006 so that you will be left with your old 800 contacts.

I hope this resolves your issue and take care bro.

Saad's way is indeed the smart way. Here's another workaround, just to list the possibilities.

Export contacts as CSV and open the CSV in Excel. Sort the data on Name (or Surname) field. This should list two identical contacts in consecutive rows. Using Ctrl key select alternate rows (800 times, whew!!!) and delete the selected rows. Now import the CSV file back into Outlook (of course, you will now have to delete all contacts in Outlook first, so that you don't end up with triplicates!!!).

Thanks very much Sa'aad.There just no way of thanking you.The least i can do is to subsitute that Dinner invitaton i made to you with a Beautiful Bride from Nigeria.You wouldn't say no to a friend, would you?
I am yet to try what you have suggested now but will i see all the unwanted contacts in one place to delete?Unlike previously the unwanted contacts will be mixed up with those i want to keep and i have to scroll and select one by one to delete.

And as for you Asrar,i am very very grateful.Any day you come by to Nigeria you shall have with me one Dinner.

Asrar

quote:

Originally posted by Asrar:
Export contacts as CSV and open the CSV in Excel. Sort the data on Name (or Surname) field. This should list two identical contacts in consecutive rows. Using Ctrl key select alternate rows (800 times, whew!!!) and delete the selected rows. Now import the CSV file back into Outlook (of course, you will now have to delete all contacts in Outlook first, so that you don't end up with triplicates!!!).

If you select from the menu DATA/FILTER/ADVANCE and tick the unique option it will save you 800 clicks . You must then copy paste special values only, all the fields to another blank sheet before saving and re-importing etc as you suggest.
rgds
Steve

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SteveJ,

SteveJ,

A good solution and MS-Excel tip

Thanks...

SteveJ, thanks, that's a great tip. And, for making my solution viable now!!!

Thanks to every one.I tried both ways and they all worked,so i have no problem with the duplications of MS Outlook