Contacts Manager
A manager that doesn’t manage…
In theory, Contacts Manager works in tandem with OS X’s Contacts app to identify and fix address book problems, including duplicates, blank names, and invalid characters. But the software fails at nearly all of these core tasks.
Address book data is presented in a list view that defaults to First Name, Last Name, Company, Home Email, or Mobile. You can add columns, but these choices aren’t preserved when you quit the app. You can edit or delete data from the main window, but it’s safer to scan contacts and see what it finds. In our case, Contacts Manager found entries with unusual title or suffix fields which turned out to be due to little more than a full stop after “Dr”, for example. The app only offers to remove the title or delete the contact, so we had to use OS X’s Contacts app to remove full stops. (Confusingly, permitted titles and suffixes can be viewed – but not edited – in the app’s preferences.)
Other flagged problems were more troubling: company-only entries were complained about for having blank names, and many contacts were identified as having invalid characters where none
Contacts Manager fails to provide a working set of the most basic address book maintenance tools.
existed. In a few cases, Contacts Manager reported duplicate addresses, with no way to confirm their identity prior to deletion. Worse yet, the software incorrectly reported alleged duplicate entries that had no relation whatsoever. J.R. Bookwalter