Written by Peter Murphy on Saturday, June 20, 2009

Free For All: Outlook Cleaner!

How often have you gone to sync your Windows Mobile phone, and gotten a message, changes on your server mean all of your data will have to be re-synced? Your phone is re named on your PC and all of your Data is duplicated. Well I found a handy free application that might help you clean up your Outlook Database…

Let’s face it, syncing Windows Mobile, via activestink [not a typo] has always been a process fraught with uncertainty. This little utility from an independent developer over at XDA Devs, offers a solution to deleting duplicate entries in Outlook. I’m always really cautious when I try freeware like this, so make sure you do a backup before your try it. As the developers disclaimer recommends as well.

This is a really promising free application, that promises more in the future. The need for duplicate PIM database removal, has been a prominent need for a long time. Outlook Cleaner, is the first WinMo App I’ve seen that actually achieves this. In a way that seems completely logical, edit the database on the WinMo device, that is usually gobble-de-gook to most people, inaccessible.

Using Contact Cleaner, reduced my contacts from over 1200 to 360, obviously that’s a space saving in any one’s terms. As well as not having to scroll through all of those duplicates. The application is incredibly easy to use, and has plenty of in built cautions, so that you don’t delete things/data you don’t want to.

The one thing that’s a little bit unintuitive, is the process for merging similair contacts, it’s still a bit like editing an excel file. choosing functions in an action field, to tell the app what to do with the data.

Overall though, this is a really handy application, that does something that Windows Mobile cannot, therefore adding value to any WinMo Device. Anything that circumvents manual editing of your contacts to remove duplicates, has got to be a good thing.