Free Outlook Tools

I’m “stuck” on Outlook 2000. Every once in a while, I go scouting for new tools for my PIM - and I’ve stumbled upon add-ons a few that may be worth your while if you also choose to use Microsoft Outlook as your personal information manager. I’ve used some of these, and I’ve just heard about the others - but all of them should be free:

Pocket Contact Synchronizer - The Microsoft Outlook Add-in: Pocket Contact Synchronizer version 1.2 (PCS) helps you synchronize contacts with devices such as your Microsoft Windows CE or Pocket PC device. From any contact folder you specify, this add-in moves contacts easily to the device you want. For example, you can synchronize a public folder that contains team contacts. Using the Outlook PCS, you can synchronize as many contact folders as you want.

NK2csv Project - NK2csv is a free utility to view and export the contents of an Outlook autocompletion file. NK2csv can recover e-mail addresses from a corrupted NK2 file!

eGrabber - AddressGrabber Basic is a FREE tool that helps you to automatically import contact details from any text into Outlook Contacts. This data entry tool can do away with 80% of your data entry time. It enables you to automatically grab Names and addresses from an email, web page or word document into your Outlook in one click.

PST Diff Tool - [This] finds the difference between two PST files. It identifies the following mails: those that are present in the first PST file only; mails that are present in both PST files, but are dfifferent. It copies the differences in an output PST file. In addition, it logs the differences in a text file.

Attachment Options - Attachment Options is a COM add-in for Outlook 2000 SP3 or higher, Outlook 2002, and Outlook 2003 that provides a user interface for changing which file types are restricted as Level 1 attachments. Level 1 attachments are hidden by Outlook, and cannot be seen, saved or opened from Outlook items. Moving an attachment extension to Level 2 enables the user to see the attachment and to save it to the file system. The attachment saved to the file system can later be opened by the user. [Personally used, installed, and recommended]

SpamBayes - SpamBayes is a tool used to segregate unwanted mail (spam) from the mail you want (ham). Before SpamBayes can be your spam filter of choice you need to train it on representative samples of email you receive. After it’s been trained, you use SpamBayes to classify new mail according to its spamminess and hamminess qualities. It’s best to train on recent email, because your interests and the nature of what spam looks like change over time. [Personally used, installed, and recommended]

PocketKnife Peek - PocketKnife Peek is an Outlook add-in for screening your e-mail as plain text before opening it in Outlook. The add-in can be used to view all Outlook message formats, but is aimed particularly at averting the threats lurking in HTML mail. [Personally used, installed, and recommended]

OL FaxPreFIXer - “Changes all fax numbers for a contact to have “F:” before the number, which hides the number from the Outlook Address Book. Also can reverse the process to make fax numbers available in the address book again. Requires optional Collaboration Data Objects component from Outlook setup. Does not work with Outlook 2003.” (as translated by Slipstick)

[tags]freeware,email,pim,microsoft office,outlook,microsoft outlook,outlook add-in,outlook plug-in[/tags]