Contacts Cleaner User's Guide
System Requirements
- Requires Mac OS X 10.6.5 or later
- Universal Binary runs natively on both Intel and PowerPC
Getting Started
Contacts Cleaner scans your Address Book contacts for various types of problems including:
- Duplicate contacts
- Duplicate contact properties such as postal address, email, and phone number
- Badly formatted names
- Invalid or unusual characters
When you're finished cleaning up your data with Contacts Cleaner, you'll probably want to copy your clean set of contacts over to any other services or devices that you sync with. If you don't, the "bad" data is likely to make its way back to your Mac. Here's how to replace data on some popular devices and services:
- Spanning Sync: Select "Replace Data on Google" from the Advanced tab of the Spanning Sync pref pane.
- iPhone/iPad/iPod: Select the device in iTunes, select the info tab, select "Replace contacts" at the bottom of the window.
- MobileMe: Open the MobileMe pref pane, select the Sync tab, click the Advanced button, and select "Reset Sync Data".
FAQ
Q. Can Contacts Cleaner fix CardDAV contacts?
A. No. Unfortunately, Apple does not provide access to CardDAV-based contacts through its developer libraries.
Q. Can Contacts Cleaner fix Exchange contacts?
A. No. Unfortunately, Apple does not provide access to Exchange-based contacts through its developer libraries.
Q. I don't care about certain problems. How do I keep Contacts Cleaner from checking for them?
A. You can choose which issues Contacts Cleaner checks for in preferences. If you just want to ignore a certain type of issue during the current session, select "Ignore Similar Conflicts" from the Conflict menu.
Q. I cleaned up my contacts but then later the problems came back. Why?
A. Most likely the problems are making their way back from devices and/or servers that you sync with. It's very important that you follow the instructions above ("When you're finished cleanin up..."), especially when fixing duplicates.
Q. It's taking a long time. Is there any way to make it faster?
A. Yes, in some cases quitting Address Book can make Contacts Cleaner much faster.
Legal
Copyright ©2009-2011 Spanning Sync, Inc. All rights reserved. Spanning, Spanning Sync, Spanning Tools, the Spanning Sync and Spanning Tools logos are trademarks of Spanning Sync, Inc.
Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.