Web-based email isn’t known for advanced contact management, but there’s more to many of these programs than you might realize. Windows Live Mail, also known as Hotmail, includes a relatively full-featured Address Book. You can easily bring all of your contacts into Hotmail, weed out duplicate information, categorize each contact, and automatically keep track of close friends and family.

Hot List

Windows Live Mail Hotmail lets you categorize contacts into different groups.

From the main Hotmail inbox, look for the Contact List link under Related Places on the left side of the screen. The contact list shows everyone in your Hotmail Address Book, in alphabetical order by first name. You can browse multiple pages of addresses or click a letter along the top edge of the list to jump around.

To change the way the list sorts, click Options in the Contacts screen or main mail screen, choose More Options, and then scroll down to the Customize Your Contacts section. Click Display Contacts As and choose your preferred option.

In the Contacts screen, click the icon next to a contact’s name to send a message to that person, view the full contact information, or edit the listing. If you haven’t really explored Hotmail contacts before, click Edit Contact Info. As you’ll see, Hotmail will store just about any details you want to track.

In Crowd

Next to each contact is the option to add that person to your “network.” The Windows Live network lets you keep tabs on friends and family who also have a Windows Live profile. Members of your network can easily share updates, pictures, or other content. When network members change email addresses or phone numbers in their profiles, that information is updated in your Hotmail contacts, as well. It’s all potentially useful, if your contacts happen to use Windows Live.

Categories can also help tame large contact lists. Select the checkbox next to all of the contacts you want to add to a particular category and then click the Categories menu. Choose an existing category or select New Category. If you create a category, a new screen will prompt you for a category name. The field below shows who belongs to the category; click the X next to a person’s name to remove that contact from the category.

You can view categories from the main Contacts screen by clicking a category name from the list on the left side under the Categories heading. Note the pre-existing Favorites category. To quickly add someone to your Favorites, just click the star icon to the far right of someone’s name in the contact list.

Get Together

If you have a batch of contacts in another email program you’d like to move to Hotmail, click the Manage menu and choose Import. As the three-step instruction page says, you’ll need to export your contact list from your other email program and save it to a handy spot, such as the Desktop. Back in the Windows Live Import Contacts screen, click the type of file you just saved. Next, click Browse to find and select the exported contacts. Finally, click Import Contacts.

Importing lists often leads to duplicates. Another option in the Manage menu, Clean Up Contacts, helps straighten your contacts list. Run the cleanup routine, and you’ll be presented with a list of people who might be listed more than once. Click each name and decide whether to merge the various entries together. You can also clear the checkbox by one or more of the duplicates and then click Delete. If you want to keep the matching entries for some reason (maybe Hotmail got confused somehow), simply do nothing and click a different name in the list or return to the main Contacts screen.

To combine a couple of contacts without going through the cleanup contacts screens, you can merge specific contacts on command. On the main Contacts screen, select the checkboxes next to two or more contacts. Choose Merge in the Manage menu. Hotmail presents the proposed merged contact with information taken from the original multiple contacts. You can change the information by clicking the different drop-down menus and choosing the appropriate data. Click Save when you’re finished. The Contacts screen will reappear, with the newly merged contact in place of those you combined.

Even with these features, Hotmail’s contacts list won’t replace any Fortune 500 company’s professional-level address book anytime soon. On the other hand, it probably includes more capabilities than most home users expect.

by Alan Phelps