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Microsoft Outlook is one of the widest used email packages available. It's also goes beyond
email, incorporating calendar and scheduling functions, task tracking, the ability to store small
notes for future reference. Though it has many features, there are still many it doesn't have.
That is where MapiLab comes in.
MapiLab produces addins for Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft MSN Messenger.
They have produced a variety of addins providing features such as automated mailing list management,
duplicate email removal, and email scheduling. A complete list can be found at
http://www.mapilab.com/.
Installation
Installation of each of the four addins tested was very simple. Each downloaded zip file contained an
.msi file. The .msi enabled me to right click on the file, and choose install. Upon running the addin
for the first time, I was prompted for registration information.
Duplicate Email Remover
Duplicate Email Remover will search your Outlook folders for duplicate email.
Very basically, it will search the folders you specify and flag the duplicate
emails. In it's more advanced methods, Duplicate Email Remover can move, copy,
flag, delete or permanently delete any duplicate messages. In my testing, Duplicate
Email Remover was able to process 16,979 email messages in 40 folders in only
71 seconds, finding 121 duplicate email messages.
Duplicate Email Remover uses a variety of email attributes to test the validity
of individual emails. The body of the messages are compared, as are some of
the Internet headers, file attachments and sending date and time. Duplicate
Email Remover ignores some of the Internet headers as it is possible for two
messages sent at the same time to be routed along two completely different routes
along the Internet. More on On the same route. Duplicate Email Remover also
do not use Receipt Time and date as part of its criteria. . It even provides
functionality to set certain folders of higher priority to ensure that folders
more likely to have original emails will be less likely to have them moved.
Contacts Verifier
 Contacts
Verifier verifies the email addresses in your contact lists are valid addresses.
The testing happens in the background using a feature of the protocol used for
sending mail. Your server (the sender) begins to send a message to the server
that should maintain the mailbox you are checking. That server typically responds
with a message stating it found the user or that the user does not exist. At
this point, Contacts Verifier ends the message sending task properly without
ever having sent a message.
MapiLabs explains
that Contacts Verifier will only detect about 70% of invalid address. My tests
showed that number to be significantly less.
Contacts Verifier allows you to check all address in a specified folder, specific
address from your contacts folder, or a single address as needed. Verifying
all addressing in your contact folder is a quick way to keep you contacts folder
up to date by eliminating dead email addresses. Once verified, Contacts Verifier
can flag the contacts with bad address (Either red or white flag) delete the
contact or open the contact to allow you to view and edit the contact directly.
One think I did note was that if a contact has multiple email address listed,
each one will be checked. If one is bad and you decide to delete the contact,
the entire contact will be deleted, not just the bad address.
Send Personally
Send Personally allows adds the functionality of being able to customize your
email messages sent to a distribution list along with making the messages appear
as if they were the only recipient of the email. Used in conjunction with Subscription
Manager, Send Personally can make Outlook a much better option for sending out
a mailing list than it already is.
I had the most trouble with Send Personally. In a strictly Internet Environment, the product
worked as expected. In an Exchange environment, when trying to send from a Distribution List, the
software would fail eventually presenting an error message.
Send Personally allows customization within the subject and body of the email
message and provides customization of the follow fields:
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MapiLab
Outlook Addins