Pocket Outlook Export, free your contacts from your PocketPC
Here is my first program contribution advertised on this blog.
One day I decided that I wouldn’t use MS Outlook any longer to manage my contacts. While it’s still convenient to have them always with you on your PocketPC, I also wanted to import my contacts into my Gmail account. But I couldn’t find a way to transfer them from my PPC to my PC…
I made that small c#.net program in order to export all the contacts stored on the PocketPC (using the native but invisible Pocket Outlook) into a CSV file, basing on a template (to define the fields to export).
Its usage is fairly simple: you install it on your PPC, copy the template.csv file in the root directory (after editing it if you like), then your run the program and wait for it to finish. There’s no UI at all, it’s script-like. The contacts will be exported in the contacts.csv file, in the root directory of your PPC. If you used the default template, you can directly import this resulting csv file into your Gmail account!
So far, the project is hosted by berlios under the Microsoft Shared Source license (since I’m using their POOM wrapper…).
Check that out: Pocket Outlook Export
My Netvibes page
Nice program. Works just as described.
Any chance you’ll add the ability to export Appointments and Tasks? I could really use that.
Thanks again.
kpjc+
Fr Kevin PJ Coffey
Comment by Fr Kevin PJ Coffey — September 29, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
Thank you!
Well, it should not be too hard to support appointments and tasks to POE; but I’m afraid I don’t have enough time to that myself…
If you know anyone (including yourself) who would be keen to support these features, please ask for the source code.
Cheers!
Comment by roly — October 5, 2007 @ 10:31 pm
Is there a way to do the opposite? ie extract from the desktop to a file that is readable by the PPC in order to upload contact over the air (as opposed to ActiveSync)? Thanks!
Comment by Jonathan — June 3, 2008 @ 8:05 pm
what do you mean exactly, jonathan? where do you want to extract the contacts from? outlook on pc? i guess this is possible, you just have to develop it! concerning activesync, you can always transfer data between your computer and your ppc without activesync as long as you use a client and a server over a TCP/IP connection.
Comment by roly — June 3, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
hi,
congratulations for the excellent idea, I don’t want to use Outlook either so your program hits the nail right on.
Do you plan / is it possible to revert (maybe same question as Jonathan)? I mean a script that takes the ‘contacts.csv’ as input on the PDA and feeds it back in pim.vol?
A kind of Outlook-less and ActiveSync-less backup, if you will…
Keep it up !
Comment by neimangu — July 22, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
hi neimangu,
of course this is possible, but still requires some development effort, which i have no time for…
remember that the source code is open, so anybody can add new features to this project.
best regards,
adrien
Comment by Adrien Joly — July 25, 2008 @ 8:18 am