How To Remove Duplicate Contacts on Windows Mobile
I have gone through a new Windows Mobile Device every year for almost 6 years now. I have had horrible incidents working with ActiveSync and my Exchange server, where I had duplicate copies of all of my contacts.
This is a royal pain in the ass, to say the least. I have tried lots of different programs to remove duplicate contacts on Windows Mobile devices in the past and had issues with all of them. They either didn’t work or they caused me more problems then I started with. But Contact Cleaner takes the cake.
This application and was written by Phil Chuang and I discovered it on the Windows Mobile Forum called Xda-Developers.com.
You can download the tiny cab file from his website here. The original link requires you to sign up, this one does not.
The application works on Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5 (for you early adopters). I tried it out on my Windows Mobile 6.5 HTC Fuze.
Simply download the application and save it to your storage card or device. Then, browse to it on your device and run it.
Upon clicking it, you will be presented with the normal Windows Mobile installation screens. You can install it either to your main memory or your storage card. As you can see, it only uses 106KB of memory.
Once the install is complete, you will find the application in your Start Menu. It does not go into a folder so it should be at the bottom of your list like so:
I knew right off the bat that I did not have any duplicates. So, I created some near duplicates before I began to run the application, just to test it out. These contacts just had identical names as other contacts and no information (so they would be easily distinguished).
I left the default options to delete exact duplicates during my scan and hit Start. You can also choose to let Contact Cleaner find your dupes and delete them at the end. But it only deletes exact duplicates, meaning the data has to be exactly the same in both. If one has a second phone number but the first does not, they will not be deleted. This is exactly what I need!
I hit Start and was ready to rock and roll:
It ran through all of my contacts, letting me know if dupes were found as it went along.
Perfect. Just as I hoped, it found my 6 duplicate contacts (that only have the same name) and did not delete them. You can continue on to view and remove duplicate contacts but I decided to duplicate a contact and run it again.
I created an exact copy of this contact and synced my device. I then re-ran the application.
It found and deleted it! Nice. Do you use something to remove duplicate contacts on your Windows Mobile device? Do you have a duplicate horror story you want to share with us? Do so in the comments!
(By) Karl Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry. His days are spent monitoring and maintaining systems on Wall Street. He helps people with their technical issues for free over at AskTheAdmin.com.
Thank you for this detailed information on the contacts cleaner app. Whether you use windows mobile, android, iphone, etc you definitely have the same type of issues that can occur for some people. Thanks again.
A smartphone that can’t be backed up to the computer without hosing your data is worse than useless. I have a smarthphone running that crap M$ garbage excuse for an OS. I started with Activesync on XP. Then I went to the horrible “Windows Sync Center” (WSC) on Vista. After totally deleting the data on my phone several times, I found that WSC is totally stupid and can not sync the phone data in any intelligent way. Regardless of what option you set, the data on the computer overwrites the data on the phone, which is usually disastrous. To deal with it, you have to totally delete the sync relationship from the computer so that when you hook up the phone the computer doesn’t recognize it. Then the computer will grab the data from your phone. It’s utter crapware. On top of that, it won’t sync contacts unless you install crap-bloatware Outlook. And when you do that? Then it duplicates any contact you’ve edited on your phone since the last sync. All M$ software is crap, but Windows Mobile and associated syncing systems are utter crap. Avoid.