I have over 100,000 addresses in my address book, about 99,000 are duplicates.
This has totally messed up my sync with iPhone. How can I get rid of the
duplicates? When I try it won't let me isolate the "Me" cpntact and delete the
rest
If you just want to delete all, use this method.
Under File in the Menu bar select Export. The default option selection
Entourage archive (.rge) file is selected with all types of data selected.
Deselect all but contacts. When you export, select the option to delete
after exporting. This should get rid of everything.
You can also select to export contacts as a tab delimited file. You can then
use Excel to clean them up. This dosn't export categories though.
Tip: If you assign a category to each contact in your Address Book even if
it's a generic category like "current" then if you get dupes the dupes will
have no category assigned and you can sort by the "none" category and delete
those.
Do you have a clean backup of your contacts to import?
There are scripts to clean up duplicates you might want to try first.
<
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/duplicates.html>
Warning! Be sure you are working offline and have Sync Services turned off
in Entourage, iCal, phone (anything that syncs) while you are cleaning up
your dupes and resetting.
For this cleanup process, I recommend these steps;
1. Turn Off Sync Services for all your apps
2. Clean up duplicates in the one source that will be your primary source
3. Follow the steps to reset Sync Services (this will erase data)
4. Turn On Sync Services
5. Note: Always backup before deleting data!
Reset Sync Services :
<
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/syncservices.html#ss2>
If you used Entourage as your primary source, select Replace Sync Services
items with Entourage items. Merging can just sync back the problems.
More info <
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/syncservices/basics.html>
A strategy that has worked for some users is NOT to check both of the Sync
Services items in Entourage preferences. Generally you don't change contacts
that often for the phone, so let it sync then turn it off. Events change
frequently so leave it selected.
Sync categories in Entourage with groups in Address Book
<
http://tinyurl.com/b2p29h>
Also hearing good things about Spanning Sync (their remove dupes is supposed
to be very good.) It's in public beta now.
<
https://secure.spanningtools.com/downloads/tools-beta.zip>
<quote>
"... A suite of utilities that analyzes, reports, and fixes dozens of
problems with iCal, Address Book, and Apple Sync Services ‹ problems ranging
from the obvious, such as duplicated calendar events, to the subtle, such as
invalid calendar dates and poorly formatted contact names."
<
http://blog.spanningsync.com/2009/06/spanning-tools-for-mac.html></quote>
Let me know if you continue to have problems.
