Remove Duplicate Contacts in Outlook Using via Top 4 Ways
Are you looking for an effective & 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 mobile devices or in web mail clients like Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
If you also need to eliminate duplicate contacts in Outlook, the good news is you can fix it via 4 of the best working solutions. In which there are two built-in Outlook functionalities, and other two methods use a third-party dedicated offline solution. All techniques discussed in this blog are working and have been practically tested by our experts while deduplicating Outlook contacts.
Reasons for Having Duplicate Contacts in Outlook
- Sync Outlook with different device & apps: This is the most common cause resulting in Outlook contacts duplication. Syncing Outlook account makes it easy for finding contacts on any platform however, this ultimately causes the issue.
- Contacts created while dragging in folders: As easy as it is to create Outlook contacts this way, it is certainly one of the reasons users are dealing with duplicate contacts.
- 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.
- No use of advanced options while importing contacts & 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”.
These are some of common reasons which is why users may be struggling with duplicate contacts And for a query like ‘Outlook remove duplicate contacts’, we have brought different solutions; including both an automated and manual. So, let’s get started!
Remove Duplicate Contacts in Outlook with an Expert Solution
To save time & avoid technical troubles of manual approaches and for efficiently remove duplicate contacts from Outlook you can try Outlook Duplicate Remover by BitRecover to securely get the job done. This tool automatically detects duplicate contacts while scanning Outlook data files, and gives a clean & organized address book. It helps users to easily eliminate duplicate contacts in Outlook without affecting original data structure. It also maintains data integrity while removal of duplicated contacts.
How to Delete Multiple Duplicate Contacts in Outlook?
- Open tool on your machine, and click on Next.
- Import contacts inside the tool through use of Configured Outlook or choosing options between Select Files or Select Folders, and click next.
- Select the folders by check marks from tool’s preview panel, where your Outlook duplicate contacts were stored > Next.
- Now, choose either Select duplicates within the folder(s) or Select duplicates across the folder(s) as per your need.
- Finally, browse the location & set preferred “Destination Path” to store resultant files > click Extract button to start the deduplication process.
Benefits of Using Automatic Solution
- This tool provides dual import option which help user to remove duplicate contacts in Outlook & imported PST files.
- Using this tool, users can also remove duplicated contacts from corrupted or orphaned OST/PST files while using its Recovery Mode.
- Tool provide Split PST option that helps users keep PST files in smaller & manageable format by dividing them into parts of 2 GB, 5 GB, or 10 GB.
- Its advanced filters options allows users to perform specific duplication on the basis of Date, To, From etc.
- This tool do not affect original data, it creates fresh new PST file from users added Outlook data files.
- Using this tool, users can delete duplicate contacts in Outlook in batches without losing data integrity.
These were the benefits of using an automated solution to eliminate duplicate contacts in Outlook.
Use of an automatic solution will help users to save their significant time & effort. However, you can also try manual approaches outlined below to deleted duplicate contacts in Outlook.
Delete Duplicate Contacts in Outlook Freely
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 other manual methods.
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 & exporting 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 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 our first segment, we have provided an automated solution for a secure & reliable job.
How to Manually Dedupe Outlook Contacts for Mac Users?
To delete 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 need to go with described automated solution above in this blog post at beginning.
Final Thoughts
In this blog, we discussed four different ways to remove duplicate contacts in Outlook. We shared both manual methods & an automated solution to help users to efficiently delete duplicate contacts in Outlook. We found use of automatic solution is a faster, safer, & reliable way to dedupe Outlook contacts. On the other hand, using manual approaches to eliminate duplicate contacts in Outlook will fails while handling large number or bulk duplicates contacts. Manual methods are time-consuming, prone to errors, & difficult for non-technical & newbie user.
So you can choose between all the given four approaches that best fits as per your requirements. Whether you prefer a manual methods or a professional tool to perform Outlook remove duplicate contacts tasks, final decision depends on size of contacts database & users specific needs.
If you face any issues while using recommended tool, feel free to contact the support team for further assistance.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. Are there any free tools to delete duplicate contacts from my email address book?
Ans. You can try trial version of suggested tool for free to delete duplicate contacts in Outlook address book.
Q2. How to remove duplicate contacts in Outlook?
Ans. Outlook remove duplicate contacts task can be easily done by all the methods described above.
Q3. How to remove duplicate contacts in new Outlook.
Ans. To remove duplicate contacts in New Outlook you need a paid membership plan of Microsoft Exchange account, and need to use manual one by one process to remove duplicate contacts in Outlook.
