Feature request: merge contacts

stuart · 14 Sep 2019, 02:57 AM

I am not sure where suggestions and feature requests are best made these days, so I am hoping someone at FM is listening here.

Because email contacts are automatically generated from received mail in Fastmail, I frequently find multiple contact entries for the same person who has emailed with different email addresses at different times. This can be a problem when I compose an email to that person, because I am presented with multiple email addresses rather than a single default and end up having to search my mailboxes to see which address they most frequently use.

It would be great to have a feature whereby I can select all of the contact entries that I have identified as being the same person, then click to merge them into one. The user would have to designate one entry as the default, which would determine which name and primary email address should be used in the merged contact. Or perhaps there could be some other way for the user to edit the merged contact before it is saved and the other, now redundant entries are deleted.

Thanks for considering this Fastmail team... if you're listening.

FredOnline · 14 Sep 2019, 04:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuart

Because email contacts are automatically generated from received mail in Fastmail

This doesn't happen in my account.

For sending, there is an option in:

Settings/Preferences/Advanced/Compose & Reply:

Auto-save contacts: I will add contacts myself

This may help.

stuart · 14 Sep 2019, 04:48 AM

Thanks for the suggestion FredOnline. It's a good idea, however I do like the auto-save method and I already seem to have a contacts list that is riddled with multiple entries that could be merged into one.

Berenburger · 14 Sep 2019, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuart

It would be great to have a feature whereby I can select all of the contact entries that I have identified as being the same person, then click to merge them into one. The user would have to designate one entry as the default, which would determine which name and primary email address should be used in the merged contact. Or perhaps there could be some other way for the user to edit the merged contact before it is saved and the other, now redundant entries are deleted.

Ditto.

Quote:

Thanks for considering this Fastmail team... if you're listening.

I doubt it. Better is to contact them directly: https://www.fastmail.com/support/

JeremyNicoll · 14 Sep 2019, 05:43 PM

I also don't let FM create contacts for me, not least because I have a naming convention for contact 'names' which isn't just someone's name - eg I indicate in it if they're a friend or a local business or a mail-list id etc.

According to: https://www.fastmail.com/help/contac...tcontacts.html

you can export your contacts and import values again. It might be possible to use a spreadsheet or (if you can program) write a de-duplicator that works with an exported list of contacts. The main problem I think you'd have is that when you then imported the simplified list you can't be sure whether the 'new' list will replace or augment the old set.

I tried this with one subset (ie Group) of my contacts. I created two formats of export file - VCF and one of the CSV options. With the CSV one I slightly modified the name of each contact then imported its contents.

I'd hoped the import process would allow me to choose the name of the group it'd place the new addresses in... but it didn't. Somehow, despite the name of the input file not being the same as the name of the CSV file that had been exported, and there being no record of the Group's group-name inside the file, the import replaced the orginal definitions with the new ones, inside the Group I'd exported the contacts from.

I ran another import after that, using the VCF file I'd first exported (which had not had the names modified) ... and now I have them (in a 'No Group') list as well as the modified set.

I deleted the entries imported from the VCF file, re-edited the CSV file to change the names in it back to their original values, and imported those again. They replaced the earlier replacements, giving me the original setup again.

If you try this, you'd want to be very careful.

stuart · 20 Sep 2019, 04:08 AM

All good advice. Thank you.

I will reconsider the manual approach to adding email addresses and will also fire off an email to Support regarding my original suggestion.

14 Sep 2019, 02:57 AM	#1
stuart Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 65	Feature request: merge contacts I am not sure where suggestions and feature requests are best made these days, so I am hoping someone at FM is listening here. Because email contacts are automatically generated from received mail in Fastmail, I frequently find multiple contact entries for the same person who has emailed with different email addresses at different times. This can be a problem when I compose an email to that person, because I am presented with multiple email addresses rather than a single default and end up having to search my mailboxes to see which address they most frequently use. It would be great to have a feature whereby I can select all of the contact entries that I have identified as being the same person, then click to merge them into one. The user would have to designate one entry as the default, which would determine which name and primary email address should be used in the merged contact. Or perhaps there could be some other way for the user to edit the merged contact before it is saved and the other, now redundant entries are deleted. Thanks for considering this Fastmail team... if you're listening.

14 Sep 2019, 04:48 AM	#3
stuart Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 65	Thanks for the suggestion FredOnline. It's a good idea, however I do like the auto-save method and I already seem to have a contacts list that is riddled with multiple entries that could be merged into one.

14 Sep 2019, 05:43 PM	#5
JeremyNicoll Essential Contributor Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: Scotland Posts: 484	I also don't let FM create contacts for me, not least because I have a naming convention for contact 'names' which isn't just someone's name - eg I indicate in it if they're a friend or a local business or a mail-list id etc. According to: https://www.fastmail.com/help/contac...tcontacts.html you can export your contacts and import values again. It might be possible to use a spreadsheet or (if you can program) write a de-duplicator that works with an exported list of contacts. The main problem I think you'd have is that when you then imported the simplified list you can't be sure whether the 'new' list will replace or augment the old set. I tried this with one subset (ie Group) of my contacts. I created two formats of export file - VCF and one of the CSV options. With the CSV one I slightly modified the name of each contact then imported its contents. I'd hoped the import process would allow me to choose the name of the group it'd place the new addresses in... but it didn't. Somehow, despite the name of the input file not being the same as the name of the CSV file that had been exported, and there being no record of the Group's group-name inside the file, the import replaced the orginal definitions with the new ones, inside the Group I'd exported the contacts from. I ran another import after that, using the VCF file I'd first exported (which had not had the names modified) ... and now I have them (in a 'No Group') list as well as the modified set. I deleted the entries imported from the VCF file, re-edited the CSV file to change the names in it back to their original values, and imported those again. They replaced the earlier replacements, giving me the original setup again. If you try this, you'd want to be very careful.

20 Sep 2019, 04:08 AM	#6
stuart Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 65	All good advice. Thank you. I will reconsider the manual approach to adding email addresses and will also fire off an email to Support regarding my original suggestion.