The shared address book fills itself from your mail, and Google Contacts or Outlook can fill it too. So the same person often turns up twice: once under a work address and once under a personal one, once as Marie Dupont and once as marie.dupont. This page covers the tools that keep the book clean, all in the column of the contacts list.
Duplicates to merge
“Duplicates to merge” lists the contacts that look like the same person, the most likely first. A number beside the entry says how many there are. Each suggestion shows both contacts and the reason in words:
- “Same phone number”. A number more than three contacts hold is a switchboard, not a person, and is not a reason.
- “Same email address, written differently”: for example a Gmail address with and without its dots, or with a +asso added before the @. Trupeo only reads an address this way for the services that deliver both to the same mailbox, such as Gmail, Outlook.com, iCloud or Fastmail.
- “Similar name”, accents aside, such as Hélène Durand and Helene Durand.
- When the mailbox keeps its contacts up to date with Google Contacts or Outlook: “Google Contacts has a second entry with this email address” (or Outlook). One of your entries there carries the same address as a Trupeo contact, and Trupeo had left it aside until now.
A card that has a suggestion says so in one line: “This contact may have a duplicate.”, with a link to the list.
Each suggestion has two buttons. “Merge…” opens the merge, below. “Not the same person” puts the suggestion away for good, for every member of the mailbox. Three copies of one person are merged two at a time.
Every member can merge and answer a suggestion: it is tidying the shared book, not a setting of the mailbox. A member who only sees some scopes only gets suggestions about contacts they can already see in the list.
Merging two contacts
“Merge…” is also in the “More actions” menu of a card, and in the list: tick two contacts, then “Merge”. Choose the contact to keep, then look at “What to keep” before anything is written:
- Where the two contacts disagree (name, organization, job title, birthday, a field’s value, a detail, the primary email address), you pick the value to keep. Each value says which contact it is on.
- For the note, “Keep both” is the default when both contacts have one: the two notes are kept, one after the other.
- “Same on both” lists, folded, what the two contacts already agree on, and “Kept from one contact” what only one of them holds. There is nothing to choose there.
- Email addresses, phones, postal addresses, websites and contact groups are all kept. A number written twice in two ways is kept once.
“This can’t be undone.”: the other contact is deleted. When both were kept up to date with Google Contacts or Outlook, the merge says that the other entry is deleted there too: Google Contacts keeps it 30 days in its trash, Outlook in Deleted Items.
If someone changes one of the two contacts while the merge is open, Trupeo does not merge values that are no longer the right ones. It shows the merge again, up to date, and you check your choices before confirming.
Removed contacts
“Remove contact”, in a card’s “More actions” menu, takes the contact out of the shared book. It is not gone at once: “Removed contacts”, in the column of the contacts list, keeps it for 30 days, with the date it was removed and the days left.
“Restore” puts it back in the book, without the contact groups it was in. If the mailbox keeps its contacts up to date with Google Contacts or Outlook and the contact was deleted there, it is added there again as a new entry.
After 30 days, everything on the contact is erased: name, note, organization, phones, postal addresses, websites, fields, details and groups. Only its email addresses stay, so that its next email does not bring it back into the book on its own. It then leaves “Removed contacts” and can no longer be restored. You can still add it back from one of its conversations, with “Add to Contacts”: it comes back with its email addresses only.
Importing contacts
“Import contacts…” brings in a file: a CSV, or a vCard (.vcf) from Google Contacts, Outlook or a phone. Up to 5 MB and 5,000 contacts; split a bigger file into several. Every member of the mailbox can import.
- The file. Choose it, then “Continue”.
- The columns (CSV only). A Google Contacts or Outlook export is recognized and its columns are already matched. For any other file, say what each column holds: a contact’s value, a field of the mailbox, a detail named after the column, the contact groups, or “Ignore”. An import never creates a field of the mailbox.
- “Before importing”. Nothing is written yet. Trupeo counts the new contacts, the contacts that gain values, the rows with no valid email address (they are left out: a contact needs one), and lists the values it could not place. A value that does not fit its field’s type is kept as a detail of the contact. When the mailbox keeps its contacts up to date with Google Contacts or Outlook, it says so: “These contacts will also be added to Google Contacts.” (or Outlook).
- “Import”. The list shows how far it has got, for example “Importing your file: 1,200 of 3,000 contacts.”
Two rules keep an old file from undoing the book’s work. An imported value never replaces a value a contact already has: it only fills what is empty and adds to the lists. And a row matching a removed contact is left out, unless you tick “Bring back the removed contacts it matches”.
Exporting contacts
“Export contacts” saves the contacts of the list on screen (“All contacts”, “Contacts”, “Other contacts” or a group) to a file. To export only some, tick them in the list, then “Export”. Choose the format:
- “vCard (.vcf)”, for Google Contacts, Outlook or a phone;
- “CSV (.csv)”, for a spreadsheet, with one column per field of the mailbox and per detail.
The file holds what the contact cards show, and none of your conversations. Importing it back into the same mailbox changes nothing: each contact carries its Trupeo ID, a column of its own in the CSV, which finds it again. Keep that column if you edit the file in a spreadsheet.
Only an owner of the mailbox can export its contacts: it is the one action that takes the whole shared book out of Trupeo in one file. Members do not see the entry.
With an assistant
If you use Trupeo from Claude or ChatGPT, the assistant can list the duplicates, show you a merge before making it, merge with the values you chose, answer that two contacts are not the same person, and restore a removed contact. It asks you before each merge. Importing and exporting files stay in Trupeo.