Why can’t Outlook pull contact information from an e-mail and create a new contact from it? I’ll ask Steve Ballmer the next time I see him. In the meantime, there’s Gwabbit, an Outlook plug-in that pulls contact information from e-mail and creates new contacts from it.
Gwabbit scans e-mails as they arrive and notifies you if it finds non-duplicate contact information. To use the tool on an existing e-mail, you just highlight the latter and click the Gwabbit button in the toolbar that gets added to Outlook.
In my quick tests, the plug-in worked quickly and efficiently when the e-mail contained traditionally formatted contact information. However, it had trouble with titles that preceded company names, like “Senior Editor, BNET Industries” — it turned the whole line into the company name.
Still, it’s a lot easier to correct minor errors like that than it is to cut and paste line after line of contact info. Consequently, there’s no question that Gwabbit can save you a ton of time. My only complaint: The $19.95 price tag. That seems a little steep for such a basic program. Silly Gwabbit… How about $9.99?
Ah, well, at least there’s a 14-day trial version (which you can use for up to 20 contacts). What do you think? Worth the price?
