Clear duplicate files from Outlook the free and easy way
Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who manages to keep their e-mail inbox empty by assigning the messages they need to keep appropriately named folders and deleting the mail they don't need.
Most of my inboxes have thousands of entries dating back years. And since I've combined my ISP's POP mail account with my Gmail account, the inbox-overflow problem has gotten out of hand.
Rather than spending half a day manually removing the duplicates, I installed Vaita's free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover. The program places an "ODIR" entry on Outlook's standard toolbar. Click it and choose "Remove duplicate items" (or press Alt-O, R) to open the add-on's window showing your Outlook folders. Select one of the folders and click the "Remove duplicate items" button at the bottom of the window.
The free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover add-on makes finding and removing duplicate Outlook entries a breeze.
(Credit: Vaita)In just a few minutes, I watched the number of items in my inbox shrink from 4,081 to a more reasonable 2,656 (and counting). The program places the duplicate messages in a folder named ODIR_Duplicate_Files. I looked through this folder for non-duplicates erroneously identified by the add-on but didn't spot any.
If you trust the program's ability to tell duplicates from singles, you can simply delete the contents of the ODIR_Duplicate_Files folder. I played it safe by moving the folder's files to compressed folder on a thumb drive before deleting them.
I may not save a ton of time or hard-drive storage space by ridding myself of duplicate Outlook files, but every little bit helps.
Tomorrow: pare Outlook further by removing the attachments from your messages.
Dennis O'Reilly has covered PCs and other technologies in print and online since 1985. Along with more than a decade as editor for Ziff-Davis's Computer Select, Dennis edited PC World's award-winning Here's How section for more than seven years. He is a member of the CNET blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. 
Need to find a duplicate file remover that is in the middle ground. I moved to a new laptop, from XP to Vista. It seems to have several copies of backup and archive files.
Tried a few including Duplicate File remover and Depuper. One is too simple and slow, the other too detailed and overwhelming.
Since most Outlook users are business people and it has a strange illogical archive system which is not intuitive for average computer user, I just pounded away PST files and backup files just to unjem the computer. Now I have moved to a new laptop with more HD space, I would like to sort things out.
Unfortunately, I cannot find a duplicate file cleaner that is in the middle ground.
Any suggestions?
Even on the duplicate Outlook contacts, I'd like to be able to confirm the choice on each duplicate removal as I've found some duplicate contacts are slightly different -- as in I may have updated on but on the other and until I gain confidence that whatever the system is that is eliminating duplicates is eliminating the ones I want eliminated, then I'd like to have a function that allows me to see how the automatic element (if there) would work and confirm (or reverse) at least a certain amount of duplicate operations.
Dennis, if you can recommend software that you folks have tested that would be best. Next best would be guidance or experience from anyone else on this site.
thank you in advance ~
Ed
I've been syncing Outlook with my Blackberry for a while now. In the process, it seems that duplicate contacts have been created. I'd love to be able to keep only one contact on both Outlook and the Blackberry.
Thanks for y'all's help.
JS
- by 1ziggie1 December 12, 2009 4:30 AM PST
- In that this duplicator is great for 'outlook' most of the rest of the world runs outlook express. Is there a program that does the same for OE6 ?
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