Got a bunch of duplicate entries in the address book of your Web-based mail service, especially for people who use more than one e-mail address? Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail all include tools that let you weed out or merge the dupes.
To merge duplicate contacts in Gmail, log into your account on the Web and open the Gmail contact manager by clicking on the arrow next to Gmail on the left side and selecting Contacts. Click the More drop-down menu and select the “Find and merge duplicates†option. After you check to make sure the duplicates really are duplicates, click the Merge button at the top. Google has more information - including steps for manually merging selected contacts - on its site.
Yahoo Mail can also merge duplicates on the contact list. Click the Contacts tab, click the Actions menu and select “Fix Duplicates†from the menu. Yahoo rounds up the double entries and presents a list of names. You can choose to merge all exact duplicates, or e dit ones that are slightly different into one entry. Yahoo has more details in its own Help pages.
You can weed out dupes in Microsoft's Hotmail too. When logged into Hotmail, click the link for the Contacts list. Under the Manage menu on the Contacts screen, choose Clean Up Contacts. After a box pops up to explain how duplicate contacts are made, click the “Clean up duplicate contacts button†to have Hotmail find and pair up duplicate entries. If you are using Microsoft's newer Outlook.com service, click the arrow next to Outlook in the top left corner, click the People icon and then click the Manage menu to get to the “Clean up contacts†command.†Microsoft has more on managing contacts here.
