Comments on: Address Book clean-up?

By: gerry

gerry — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 13:31:28 +0000

This also looks interesting (althugh I have not tried them myself)...
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051217000214536&lsrc=osxh

By: Joe Gakenheimer

Joe Gakenheimer — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:07:00 +0000

Seems like Thunderbird aka Mozilla's email software has an addin to do such address book "cleanups."

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:10:52 +0000

I also use Plaxo, and it's a much improved service from the spammy days of email notifications from all your friends.

That said, you might start by going to the Card menu in your OS X Address Book and selecting the "Look for Duplicate Entries..." item.

By: Chet

Chet — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:04:51 +0000

I am loathe to trust anyone but me with my own data, and hate the idea that an associate of mine may decide to use Plaxo, and that Plaxo may later decide to use all those contact records for marketing purposes. It really doesn't matter what they say NOW; it's only a matter of time until they change their mind, or until someone decides the address lists are incentive enough to crack them.

Ergo: bollox to Plaxo. I'd find a local tool.

By: woulfe

woulfe — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 03:09:23 +0000

According to Michael Arrington, earlier this year Plaxo was malignant, but now it's benign.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 11:28:11 +0000

Dear Professor Lessig,

Plaxo is your best bet, and is a fantastic service. I have a similar number of contacts and have neither the time nor inclination to manually manage my address book anymore. While I use OS X/AddressBook as a primary, if you occasionally need to venture into Windows/Outlook, it is truly a fabulous cross platform service. I cannot endorse them highly enough, obvious standard disclaimer applies, no stock, no financial incentive. Merely a very satisfied customer.

By: David Staub

David Staub — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 01:33:19 +0000

Plaxo is probably very good at what it does but make sure that you don't let it send out constant reminders to your address book to "Update your address book entry!" I have several contacts who use it and I personally find it annoying that I am asked on a regular basis to confirm that I have not changed my address.

By: Lessig

Lessig — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:24:30 +0000

Thanks. And I'll explore the Plaxo option too. Grateful for the help.

By: Joseph Smarr

Joseph Smarr — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 17:14:02 +0000

Plaxo has a very good de-duplicator called "Address Book Optimizer" that's part of our premium package ($49.95, free 30 day trial). We also have a sync plug-in for MacOS X address book. So you'd install the plugin, sync your contacts up to Plaxo, run the de-duper (it does both automatic merging of duplicates and assisted merging of near dups) and the results would get synced back down into your Mac AB. It's definitely our most popular premium product, and as far as I can tell, it's got more smarts built in than any similar product I've found. Plus, since it syncs directly with your Mac AB, there's no need to do import/export separately. Hope this helps! js

By: foo

foo — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 16:06:04 +0000

Do you know about the "Look for Duplicate Entries..." in the Card menu in Tiger?