Top 2 Ways to Remove Duplicate Contacts in Outlook Client
Are you looking for an effective and easy way to remove duplicate contacts in Outlook? Whether you are using Outlook for Mac or Windows. Having duplicate contacts in Outlook can be a clutter for many of us. It is necessary to have deduplicated Outlook contacts for exporting them into your mobile devices or in webmail clients like Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
If you also need to eliminate duplicate contacts in Outlook, the good news is you can fix it via 2 of the best working solutions. One is manual, which is Outlook’s inbuilt functionality, and the second is using a third-party dedicated offline solution. Both techniques discussed in this blog are compatible with both Mac and Windows OS users who need to dedupe Outlook contacts.
Reasons for Having Duplicate Contacts in Outlook
- You have synced your Outlook with different devices or apps: This is the most common cause resulting in Outlook contacts duplication. Syncing your Outlook account makes it easy for finding contacts on any platform however, this ultimately causes the issue.
- You create a contact by dragging an email to the contact folder: As easy as it is to create your Outlook contacts this way, it is certainly one of the reasons you are dealing with duplicate contacts.
- You maintain multiple address books on the Exchange Server: Many businesses and organizations maintain several address books on their Exchange server. This is another reason why they face the duplicate contacts in Outlook issue.
- Not utilizing advanced options while importing contacts or merging PST files: Whenever you add a new email address or contact in an existing Outlook contact, do remember to disable the checkbox for “Allow Duplicates to be Created”.
So these are some of the common reasons why you may be struggling with duplicate contacts And for a query like ‘Outlook remove duplicate contacts’, we have brought different solutions; including both manual and automated ones. So, let’s get started!
Remove Duplicate Contacts in Outlook Manually – One at a Time
If you only have a few duplicate contacts to delete then you can simply do it from your Outlook application. This manual method shows you how you can execute that.
- Launch Outlook on your device and click on the People icon on the bottom left of the Outlook window
- Now, in the top horizontal ribbon, look for the current view group and click on Phone
- Next, hold the Ctrl key and click on each duplicate contact, and then press Delete
Note: You can also use this method to scan your Outlook contacts to find duplicates.
As you see, a lesser number of duplicate contacts can be deleted using this method, however, if you have a large number of duplicate contacts to delete then this method would be redundant for you. Thus, you will need a technique that would help you delete duplicate contacts in Outlook. For that, we have a manual solution as well as an automated one.
How to Eliminate Duplicate Contacts in Outlook for Windows?
As stated above, the above-mentioned manual method cannot help you in deleting a large number of duplicate contacts. Following the method would make the task tedious and tiresome. Thus, in place of that, you can use this method instead. This manual method involves importing and exporting your Outlook contacts in order to delete the duplicates. Here’s how to execute it.
- Launch Outlook on your device and go to the Contacts window
- Create a new folder in there and name it, for instance, “Duplicate Contacts”
- Now, go back to your original contacts folder and select all of your Outlook contacts by using Ctrl+A. Then, drag those contacts to the new folder you created
- Now open the File menu of Outlook and click on Open & Export >> Import/Export
- Then, select the “Export to a File” option
- Choose the CSV (Comma Separated Values) format
- To export, select the new folder where you have moved all your Outlook contacts
- Browse a location on your system and save the folder there
Now that you have all your Outlook contacts in CSV format, it is time to import them in Outlook again. You can do so by using the Import Export Wizard in Outlook. Must remember to “Check the box for Do not Import Duplicate Items” while importing the exported files into Outlook. So this is how you can remove duplicate contacts in Outlook with a manual approach, however, this method is quite lengthy which makes it extremely tiresome for users to perform. Thus, in the next segment, we have provided an automated solution for a secure and reliable job.
How to Manually Dedupe Outlook Contacts for Mac Users?
To remove duplicate contacts in Outlook Mac, there is no cleanup button offered by Outlook Mac. Therefore, to do so, you need to go to the Outlook contacts folder on your Mac and manually remove the duplicate contacts one by one from the Outlook Mac. However, if you are a professional user and handling a large Outlook contact data set for deduplication, you should go with the automated solution described below in this blog post.
Remove Duplicate Contacts in Outlook with an Expert Solution
For a reliable and safe job get the BitRecover Outlook Duplicate Remover. Numerous experts recommend this tool because of its utmost data security while performing the task. Checkout its remarkable features.
Highlighted Features of this Software
- It can add your Outlook Profile data by default from the storage location.
- Or you can choose to add your own mailbox data if you have any orphaned OST/PST files.
- You can choose to split PST file in 2 GB, 5 GB or 10 GB size as well.
- Rather than affecting the original file data, it creates a fresh new PST file.
- Provides users with a Recovery Mode option that deletes duplicate Outlook emails and creates a new healthy PST file.
- It preserves all attributes of all the items in the PST file
All these extraordinary features make this tool the best among its peers. Now, let’s see how to delete multiple duplicate contacts in Outlook using an Outlook duplicate contacts remover.
How to Delete Multiple Duplicate Contacts in Outlook?
- Download and install the Outlook duplicate contacts remover
- Next, upload your Outlook data with either of the two given options: With Convert Configured Outlook Mailbox Data, you can add your Outlook profile directly to add the required data. Whereas, the Let me Select my Outlook Mailbox Data gives you two options, Select Files or Select Folders to add your Outlook data in software
- If you have Corrupted PST files which you want to deduplicate then you can use the Recovery Mode
- Now with the Outlook data uploaded in the software, check or uncheck the boxes for the required folders
- Choose either Select duplicates within the folder(s) or Select duplicates across the folder(s)
- If you want the resultant files to be smaller and manageable in size then you can use the Split PST option.
- In the filter options tab, use the advanced filters as per your requirements. For instance, you can perform selective deduplication on the basis of Date, To, From etc.
- Next, Browse and select a preferred location to store the resultant files on your system. Finally, click on the Extract button to start the deduplication process
Conclusion
In the above-mentioned article, we discussed how you can remove duplicate contacts in Outlook. We shared both manual solutions as well as one automated solution. Although for a secure and reliable job, technical experts recommend going for the above-mentioned professional Outlook duplicate contacts remover.
