Organize and Cleanup Outlook Express Address Book
Many address books are quite unorganized with addresses that are never used, email addresses in the “Names" column, misspelled names, uncapitalized names and duplicate addresses or names. Do you recognize your Address Book here?
Steps
- Let's get started; open up your Outlook Express Address Book by clicking the icon for the address book.
- Look down the list and find any email addresses that are no longer needed, <Select> them with a left mouse click and then click the <Delete> icon. Alternate way <Right Mouse> click on any unused addresses and choose <Delete> from the drop down menu. Repeat until all unused addresses are gone.
- Recheck the list of email addresses and locate one where the email address appears in the “Name‿ field (column). Double click on that email address and a “Properties‿ window will pop up. Notice a number of tabs along the top starting with “Summary‿ then “Name‿ and “Home‿. Click on the <Name> tab and in the next window note the “First name‿ box is already in edit mode, just start typing in that box with a capital letter and the rest of the first name only, not the last name. Next click in the “Last name‿ box (or Tab twice to get the flashing cursor there ) and input the last name of the contact there. The email address will remain in the email box. When the names are input properly click OK
- Repeat for each email address that appears in the name field. Now look for any entries where there is maybe only one name either last name or first name or misspelled or uncapitalized. Double click on each and edit them as above until your address book looks a bit more professional.
- Now to organize a bit further, let's say you have some names in your address book that you very seldom use but still want to keep them. Another instance might be some contacts from a club, church or work that take up space in your address book and you seldom use them. Here is how to group them in separate folders.
- Open up the Address Book, click the mouse (select) “Shared contacts‿, then click New>New folder in the box that comes up input an appropriate name for a group of emails that you want to keep together. When done click OK and notice your new folder listed in the left panel.
- The easiest way to get the names to the new folder is to select each name and drag and drop them into the new folder one at a time. If you had a name that you would like in both folders hold down the Ctrl key while you drag and drop to copy it to the new folder.
Tips
- If you have taken the time to organize your address book, take an extra two minutes to "Save" the Email addresses to another storage media, 3 1/2" floppy, CD or another drive location. Open the address book, then go to <File> <Export> <Address book (WAB)...>, name your address book something like "Address Feb 2006" then save to your chosen media where it will be safe if your computer crashes or you buy a new computer. Do this regularly.
