Open the tool

Double-click the HTML file. The top bar carries the screens: Dashboard, All Contacts, Company Confirmation, Manage Groups, Ready to Mail, History & Export and this Guidebook. They run in the order of the work: look, clean, confirm, organise, then send. History & Export and this Guidebook come after. The numbers on the buttons count your contacts and the addresses ready to mail.

Beside the screens sit four controls. File & Backup opens a short menu to load or save your contact file and your complete backup, from any screen. The Theme list sets the colours: Auto follows your Windows light or dark setting, then Light and five dark themes. The Full screen icon hides the browser frame, and Esc brings it back. + Add contact opens the new-contact form from any screen.

The strip under the top bar tells you what is loaded and from which file. With nothing loaded, the Dashboard shows Start here.

Load your contacts

Open All Contacts, Load files tab, or choose File & Backup, Load a contact file in the top bar. Drop your file on the box, or press Choose files. You can pick several files at once and they load as one list. Each format is read by its own reader, so an Excel sheet, a CSV and a vCard all come in correctly. Mobile numbers keep their leading zero.

If contacts are already loaded, the tool asks first. Merge into my contacts keeps everything you have, adds the new contacts, and fills a field only where yours is blank. Replace everything starts from the file, and your current contacts are kept as a dated version under History & Export, History first.

A PDF, an old .doc file or a picture cannot be read reliably in a browser. The tool says so and tells you how to convert it.

Check the column mapping

When a column name is not recognised, Check the columns opens before anything loads. Each column in your file sits next to its first value and the field it will load as. Change any that are wrong. A column set to Ignore this column is not loaded. Press Load with this mapping to go on.

Tick Always let me check the column mapping before loading under the drop box if you want to see this window every time.

Read the dashboard

The cards across the top give the state of the whole list. A card with a number above zero is a button: click it and the matching contacts open. A card at zero turns grey. Every card is explained under Every card on the dashboard.

Health by group shows where the correction work sits. Click a row to open All Contacts with that group’s addresses that need action. Domains carrying issues lists company domains with flagged addresses. Several flags on one domain usually means that company changed its mail system.

When contacts are due a confirmation, a blue line above the cards gives the count: overdue, never confirmed, and how many companies. Send sheets to these companies opens Company Confirmation with those companies already picked.

Recheck all addresses runs every check again. Tick Also check each domain’s mail server (MX) to ask public DNS whether each company domain can receive mail. That needs internet and sends domain names only.

Find contacts with the filters

All Contacts is the full list, with the health of every address. An address that needs a look shows the reason under its health label, and hovering over any label shows it too. What the health labels mean explains each one.

• Search looks through group, company, person, designation, email, both mobiles, notes and tags.
• Group, Company, Email health, Delivery status, Flag, Tag and Domain each open a tick list. Tick as many as you need. Each value shows how many contacts carry it.
• Ticks apply when you press Done, click outside the list, or press Esc.
• Inside one filter, a contact needs to match any one ticked value. Across filters, it must match all of them. Knit and Denim under Group, with Warning under Email health, gives the Warning contacts in either group.
• Clear filters appears once a filter is on, and resets the bar.
• On a phone, the dropdowns fold behind one Filters button, so the list starts near the top. Search stays open.
• A long table shows 200 rows at a time. Show 200 more or Show all draws the rest. Select all that match, the copy buttons and the exports always take every matching row, not only the rows drawn.

A mobile number is a call link. WA beside it opens the chat in WhatsApp. A number that looks wrong shows a ! and the reason on hover.

Fix problems and record bounces

When an address is not safe for a bulk send, All Contacts shows an amber line above the filters: how many addresses need action. Press Show them to list only those, with the reason under each health label. Export them (.xlsx) gives the list with the reason on each row, and Copy them copies the addresses. Show all contacts brings the full list back. These contacts stay in your list, flagged. Nothing is deleted. When nothing needs action, the line is not shown.

Press Edit on any row to fix a contact. When you change the email, its health line updates as you type. The window also holds the delivery status, tags, notes, the confirmation tick and the contact’s own change history.

The Record bounces tab on All Contacts is how real failures come in. Drop the bounce messages, .eml or .msg, straight from an Outlook folder. Or paste the addresses, choose a status such as Hard Bounce, and press Match and apply. A recorded bounce is the strongest evidence the tool has, and it keeps that address out of every mailing list.

Organise groups and confirm contacts

Open Manage Groups. Type a name under New group name and press Create group. Each row in the table has Open, Rename and Delete. A contact can sit in several groups. Deleting a group never deletes its contacts. A contact left with no group stays in your list as Ungrouped, and Ungrouped in the Group filter finds all of them, ready to put into a group again.

Open shows the group panel. Add people three ways:

• Add a whole company. Type three letters, pick the company, press Add all its contacts.
• Find contacts to add. Search, tick, then press Add ticked contacts.
• Paste emails or mobile numbers, one per line, a name may follow. A known address or number adds that contact. A new one becomes a new contact in the group.

From the panel you can copy the group’s emails, open it in Ready to Mail, export it, or add a new contact straight into it. Tick members and press Remove ticked from this group to take them out.

Confirm contacts with each company

The Company Confirmation screen runs the yearly check with each company, in three steps:

• 1 · Send. Type three letters of a company and pick it. Pick as many as you need; each one shows as a tag you can remove with its ×. Add the companies due (the button shows how many) picks every company with an overdue or never-confirmed contact. Then press Export, which counts your picks, for example Export 5 companies. Export all companies takes every company. The sheet lists the company's contacts with shaded columns to fill in, and a Ref column the tool uses to match each row later. With Also make an Outlook email draft with the sheet attached ticked, each company gets its own email draft. The subject reads Contact List Update and the company name. It is addressed to that company's contacts who are ready to mail, asks them to update the sheet and reply, and carries only that company's sheet. Open it, check it, and press Send. Sign the email as adds your name under the message. Up to 10 companies come as separate draft files, ready to open, plus one workbook with all their sheets for your record. More than 10, or all companies, come in one zip file.
• 2 · The company fills it in. Still correct? Yes or No, New email, New mobile and Remarks. The sheet and the email ask for at least 3 to 5 people, each with email and mobile: top management and the team handling your account. Empty rows are ready at the bottom for anyone missing.
• 3 · Import what comes back. Drop the returned files on the box, or press Import returned sheets. A returned sheet dropped on the main Load files box is recognised and sent here too.

Before anything changes, a window lists every change, company by company: confirmed, corrected, answered No, new people, rows not answered, and rows the company removed. Press Apply to write them. Then:

• Yes marks the contact confirmed today.
• A New email or New mobile replaces the old one, and the contact is confirmed today. A correction typed straight into the name, designation, email or mobile columns counts too.
• No with nothing new sets the delivery status to Requires Verification, so the contact shows when you press Show them on All Contacts.
• Remarks are added to the contact's notes with the company name and date.
• A new row becomes a new contact in that company, in its usual group, confirmed today.
• A row the company deleted is left as it is. Check with the company before you delete anyone.

Every change goes into the contact's own history and Change history. Your contacts are kept as a dated version under History first, so an import can be undone by restoring that version.

Build a mailing list and copy it

Ready to Mail holds only addresses that passed every check, are not recorded as bounced, and are not on the do-not-mail list. Each address appears once, even when two contacts share it.

• Filter it the same way as step 5. Save these filters as a list keeps the choice under a name, and Saved list brings it back.
• The Excluding Warning-level addresses button lets you add Warning addresses when you choose to. Invalid, Missing, Bounced and do-not-mail addresses are never included.
• Copy all emails puts the whole string on the clipboard, separated by semicolons. Paste it into the Outlook To, CC or BCC box.
• Send in batches of splits a long list into blocks with a copy button each. Exchange Online allows up to 1,000 recipients per message by default. Your IT team may set a lower limit.
• Block on a row, or Add selected to do-not-mail, puts an address on the Do-not-mail list. That list sits apart from your contacts, so loading a new file cannot bring a blocked address back.
• By company copies every valid address at one company in one click.

Add, edit, merge and delete contacts

All Contacts is where the list is kept clean. It has seven tabs across the top, and the tab bar counts records, duplicate sets and deleted contacts.

• Load files. Step 2 above.
• Record bounces. Step 6 above.
• Add a contact. Start typing a company. If it is already in the list, the tool offers it and fills the group. The health line tells you whether the email is sound before you save.
• Contacts. Search and filter the list, then tick contacts. Select all that match ticks every filtered row, not only the page. Once a contact is ticked, a blue bar shows how many are selected and the buttons: Copy selected emails, Mark confirmed today, Add a tag, Remove a tag, Add to group, Remove from group, Replace group, Set delivery status or Delete selected. Clear selection unticks them all. Every change is written to the contact’s history.
• Duplicates. Exact duplicates share an address. Potential duplicates share a company and a person with a different address. Merge keeps one record, fills its blanks from the others, and moves the rest to Recently deleted. Nothing is merged without you.
• Recently deleted. Deleted and merged-away contacts wait here until you empty the bin. Restore puts one back exactly as it was. Right after a delete, Undo appears at the bottom of the screen for a few seconds.
• Settings & privacy. Keep contacts in this browser between sessions, how much browser storage is in use, the Country code for local mobile numbers used for WhatsApp links, and Reconfirm contacts every 6, 12 or 24 months.

Browser storage is not a backup. It is not encrypted, and clearing browser data wipes it. On a shared or office computer, turn Keep contacts in this browser off and save a backup instead.

Save, back up, look back and export

File & Backup in the top bar holds the everyday saves, from any screen:

• Load a contact file… and Save working file (.xlsx). The working file is one Excel file you can edit and load back next time. Keep the same name and save over it. The menu shows the time of your last save.
• Download complete backup (.json) writes one file with everything: contacts, history, saved versions, saved lists, the do-not-mail list, deleted contacts and settings. It asks for an optional password first. With a password the file is encrypted with AES-256, and a lost password cannot be recovered. Load from backup… restores it, and keeps what is on screen as a dated version first.

The History & Export screen holds three tabs:

• History. Save current version keeps a dated snapshot in this browser. Tick versions to combine them into one file or into your contacts. Change history lists what changed, on which contact, and when.
• Export. Three groups of files: Save and reload, Reports to read or send, and Contact apps for Google Contacts, Outlook and vCard. What goes in decides whether the export follows your filters or takes everything.
• Save & backup. The same saves as the File & Backup menu, with more detail: what the working file carries, how many changes are waiting, and the backup password fields.

The File & Backup button counts unsaved changes. After 20 unsaved changes, a reminder asks you to save.