Menneisyys

Now that I’ve published my quick tutorial on mass-deleting / marking (un)read mail items in all mobile operating systems I’ve just been asked by my blog reader natestera on how the same can be done under WM5+ to PIM ("Personal Information Manager") data like calendar (appointment) info, contacts and tasks.

I’ve already elaborated on this subject in some forum posts and articles some two or three years ago. As, in the meantime,

1. WM5 has changed the way contacts can be mass-deleted in its built-in Contacts client (read: it no longer offers mass-selection/deletion capabilities; note that it didn’t change the way tasks and appointments are handled, though. That is, it didn’t introduce mass-selection / deletion capabilities to appointments and it didn’t take away the mass (incl. Ctl + A) /block selection capabilities of Tasks);
2. SKTools, the, in my opinion, best all-in-one system tool, received mass deletion capabilities; so did the brand new and, what is more, free PIM Backup;
3. some third-party PIM handler applications also received (some) mass-deletion capabilities and
4. my previous tutorials didn’t elaborate on the touchscreen-less MS Smartphone platform, only Pocket PC’s,

I found it necessary to publish a brand new, all-in-one tutorial on all these questions.

Note that this tutorial both elaborates on Pocket PC’s (with a touchscreen) and touchscreen-less MS Smartphones. Section 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 all apply to both operating systems. It’s only Chapter 2 (see Section 2.1 and 2.2) that separately discusses third-party PIM replacement applications for the two platforms.

1.1 Built-in Windows Mobile PIM apps

First, let's take a look at how the built-in Windows Mobile applications show PIM data and whether they allow for mass selection:

1.1.1 Pocket PC’s

Appointments:



(Tools / Options doesn’t have anything like this either: 1 2)

Contacts:


As can clearly be seen, starting with WM5, the contact list is not a simple, textual list any more; this may be one of the reasons why, for example, Ctl+A (on the on-screen keyboard or with external apps like AEButtonPlus capable of generating "Select all" events) or traditional block-selection keyboard shortcuts (usable from external keyboards or built-in thumbboards) don’t work any more – unlike with apps (still) based on the usual list view (like, for example, File Explorer Mobile.)


(No mass-deletion in the contact options either.)

On the touchscreen-based Pocket PC’s (but NOT on Smartphones – with the latter, not even hacks like that of AEButtonPlus work), it’s only with Tasks that mass selection (with either the stylus or Ctl-A on the on-screen keyboard) is possible:



Of course, answer Yes to the question:



1.1.2 MS Smartphones

As far as the MS Smartphone platform is concerned, the situation is equally bad with Contacts and Calendar:





and definitely worse with Tasks: unlike with Pocket PC’s, you can’t mass-delete your tasks in there. Yes, not even with "Select all" button hacks like AEButtonPlus.

1.2 Third-party tools for mass-deletion

If you do need mass deletion capabilities and you don’t want to go for a complete, PIM deletion-capable PIM replacement (or, desktop-based deletion), your best choice will be either the very capable and nice, but commercial SKTools and/or the free, but still very capable and useful PIM Backup.

Also note that, for example, MemMaid (another, excellent generic maintenance utility) also offers PIM database emptying features. As I consider MemMaid less featureful than SKTools and generally prefer the latter to the former, I don’t elaborate on it in this tutorial – I only stick to SKTools and the free PIM Backup.

1.2.1 SKTools

S-K-Tools is an all-in-one system cleaner application with quick PIM deletion capabilities. It’s available for both Pocket PC (equipped with a touchscreen) and touchscreen-less MS Smartphones. Note that it’s a commercial application; if you "only" need PIM data deletion and you are absolutely sure you won’t ever need the other (excellent) features of SKTools, you will want to prefer PIM Backup (see section 1.2.2) instead. Not that SKTools would be that expensive: actually, it’s very cheap, well worth the money.

First, go to View / PIM:



(note that I only show you MS Smartphone screenshots in here; in general, you need to do the same on touschscreen-enabled Pocket PC’s.)

Go to "Delete PIM information":



Check the PIM category you want to clean up; in the following screenshot, it’s Appointments:



Select Action/ Delete:



Answer Yes to the question coming up:



And, then, No (!!!) to the next one (NOT Yes!):



Note that you can delete more categories at once:

1. If you want to delete everything, just select Action / Delete All

2. If you want to delete the contents of several categories at once (but not all of them), tick their checkbox like in here:



3. and select Action/ Delete Marked.

1.2.2 PIM Backup

I’ve elaborated on PIM Backup’s cross-device PIM transfer capabilities HERE, along with those of SKTools. Fortunately, (as of version 2.8), it already supports emptying these databases too. As PIM Backup is free, it’s an excellent choice for mass deletion operations like this.

After downloading the app, transferring the single EXE file to your handset, running it and it firing up (the latter can take a while), you’ll be presented all the PIM databases. Go to Options / Delete All:





and select the category you’d like to empty. Answer Yes to the question:



After the deletion has successfully completed, you’ll be presented a success message:



PIM Backup, of course, also works on the MS Smartphone platform as well; an example result of the above Appointments deletion is as follows:



1.2.3 What about Pocket dbExplorer 3.0 ?

Pocket dbExplorer was one of my favorite system hacker tools back in the pre-WM5 days. Let’s take a look at the brand new, 3.0 version, which is already compatible with WM5+.

Unfortunately, it still isn’t able to empty databases, "only" view / modify / export / backup / delete these databases. However, as you may need the latter functionality (it can prove pretty useful in other cases), I still elaborate on it. (AGAIN, you can NOT use it for deleting PIM info – "only" manipulating / exporting / transferring it! This section is only for hackers and geeks!)

First, in order to be able to access these system databases, you must click the "Object Store" drop-down list in the upper left corner and select "Open External Volume...":



Now, double-tap pim.vol:



You’ll be taken to its internal database list:



Unfortunately, you can, NOT empty them:



Deletion gets rid of it completely as can also be seen in THIS screenshot.

Note that you don’t need to check in the "Show system databases" checkbox in Tools / Options.

1.3 Mass-deleting PIM info on the desktop

You can also delete your PIM data on the desktop – if you do synchronize your PIM stuff to your, say, Outlook on your desktop, you can easily mass delete your stuff in there. Fortunately, Outlook allows for mass PIM deletion – also including appointments.

After you delete your useless PIM info on the desktop, the next ActiveSync / (on Windows Vista,) Mobile Device Center synchronization will make sure these records will also be deleted on your handset.

__________________
Microsoft MVP - Mobile Devices, 2006, 2007. See my PPC & SP blog HERE.

Menneisyys

2. Mass deletion capabilities of third-party PIM applications

Several Windows Mobile users use third-party PIM applications like Pocket Informant / Agenda Fusion on the Pocket PC and Pocket Informant / Agenda One / Papyrus on the MS Smartphone, let’s take a look at how these apps handle mass deletion. Note that you will NOT want to use these, in most cases, pretty bloated (albeit VERY useful and capable) apps if you "only" want to delete your PIM stuff – SKTools or, even better, PIM Backup is far better suited for "simple" PIM data cleanup.

2.1 Pocket PC

2.1.1 Pocket Informant 8.02

Contacts (and tasks - but, again, you can do the same in the default Tasks application of Windows Mobile Pocket PC!) can be easily mass-deleted after selecting them all (or a block of them) with the stylus:





While, in the default calendar view, it can’t delete more than one appointment at a time, you can easily do this in the powerful Search View. (Also see page 54 (Search View (SV)) in the PDF manual HERE). It’s really powerful and customizable; note that you can search for an empty string (or, an asterisk (*)) if you want to list everything:



Note that the above screenshot shows all kinds of PIM data, not only Calendar. Should you want to stick to Calendar data only, make sure you untick the Tasks etc. icons in the upper toolbar before (re-)running the wildcard search; then, only the Calendar items will be listed, ready for mass-selection with the stylus (or, if you want to quickly select everything, Ctl-A on the on-screen keyboard):



2.1.2 Agenda Fusion 8.60

In Agenda Fusion, you can mass-select Contacts and delete them in one step:



You can’t, however, do the same to appointments or tasks; they need to be deleted one-by-one:





(Of course, as the operating system supports mass-deleting Tasks, the latter isn't really a problem - always use the built-in Tasks in Windows Mobile to delete these tasks.)

2.2 MS Smartphone

Unfortunately, the situation (compared to that of the Pocket PC) is much worse with the MS Smartphone platform: the three leading PIM suites, Pocket Informant, Agenda One and Papyrus, don’t offer mass selection / deletion capabilities at all or don’t really support mass-selection using built-in dialpads / keyboards. The "Select All" hack of AEBPlus, explained in my previous, mail deletion article doesn’t work with any of them, either.

2.2.1 Pocket Informant 8.02

As with the PPC version, you’ll need to go to the Search View so that you can mass-select any kind of PIM info:



Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way on my HTC Vox (s710) to highlight more than one element in the list when only using the built-in dialpad or the QWERTY thumbboard (again, Shift did not work as expected – this, however, doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work with Motorola / Samsung Smartphones, though). However, with an external keyboard (tested with Pocket Controller; should also work with BT keyboards like the iGo StowAway one), it does work as can be seen in here:



(in here, I’ve mass-selected four items)

Unfortunately, my (multiple – deleting both tasks and appointments) deletion attempts resulted in a crash:



I'm pretty sure the developer will fix the latter bug and adds mass selection capabilities using the numeric dialpad - together with, say, #, as is the case with Symbian S60 smart phones without a dedicated Pencil key.

2.2.2 Agenda One 8309



The (pretty extensive) Options doesn’t offer this either:





(The situation is the same with the Tasks / Calendar view.)

Shift + cursor doesn’t work with external keyboards, unlike in Pocket Informant.

2.2.3 Papyrus 1.3.17

I didn’t find a way to mass-delete appointments or tasks (the app doesn’t handle contacts at all). You can only delete them one by one by selecting it and, then, selecting Delete. Shift + cursor mass selection doesn’t work (unlike in Pocket Informant) with an external keyboard either.

__________________
Microsoft MVP - Mobile Devices, 2006, 2007. See my PPC & SP blog HERE.

Menneisyys

UPDATE (later the same day): there’s another, brand new utility to clean up the PIM data on WM5+ devices, PocketOutlook Eraser. As of current, 1.1 version, it requires Compact Framework 2 (CF2) to run. CF2 is integrated into WM6 devices – but not into WM5 ones. You’ll find the CF2 installer CAB file HERE. Also note that, as opposed to the initial version, it already creates a link to the main executable.


(WM6 Smartphone screenshot)


(WM6 VGA PPC screenshot)


(Thanks to my blog reader John for the heads-up!)

__________________
Microsoft MVP - Mobile Devices, 2006, 2007. See my PPC & SP blog HERE.

Menneisyys

Note that DotFred's PPCContactsMgr (see PPCContactsMgr v1.6 download at Freeware Pocket PC for download and PPCContactsMgr v1.6 - xda-developers for more info and the original thread) also allows for (mass) contact deletion.

__________________
Microsoft MVP - Mobile Devices, 2006, 2007. See my PPC & SP blog HERE.

breley

As always Menneisyys, an excellent and very helpful tutorial/comparison!

__________________
breley | Aximsite/Mobility Site Review Staff, Administrator | Judge, Smartphone & Pocket PC Best Software Awards 2008

johnhu_2005

Whoa! Insanely nice job! Maybe a sticky?

__________________
~~~
Currently running LennySh L11 ROM (Lenny Edition).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the Zaniax:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Check out my awesome new myPDA!