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'Manage Lists' Tab
..:: Objectives
- Merge two lists to a file.
- Remove duplicate email addresses from a list.
- Remove invalid email addresses from a list.
- Compare two lists (select common or different email addresses from the lists).
- Find a string in a list (possibility to select the matching email addresses).
- Perform statistics based on domain names.
- Sort a list.
- Split a list.
- Convert a list into a Bcc format (i.e. comma separated list of email addresses).
As you can see in the screenshot below, the window is divided into two parts,
the 'Left List' and the 'Right List'. You can perform the exact same operations
on both lists. In addition you can compare and merge them.
..:: Importing a List
The first thing you have to do is to import a list of email addresses. To do so,
click on the 'Import' button of your choice, left or right, to work on the left
or right list respectively.
Let's take the 'Import' button of the left list.
When you click on the 'Import' button, the following window pops up :
Then select the file containing your list of email addresses and
click on the 'Open' button.
As a result, another window pops up to allow you to select the format matching
your file structure.
Your List can simply consist of one email address per record as in the example
below ...
... or each record can consist of several fields like for
example email address, IP address, Date and Time, etc.
Let's take an example where each record of the list has the following format :
<email address><comma><IP address><comma><date and time><CRLF>.
shirlley1-andersen@worldnet.att.net,12.84.115.222,2003-05-20
17:29:31 cst
md5694@webtv.net,209.240.198.62,2003-05-20 18:30:43 cst
vegas144237@fuse.net,216.68.187.113,2003-05-20 18:13:09 cst
caseynnahalf@hotmail.com,67.200.26.215,2003-05-20 18:10:09 cst
kat94556@hotmail.com,209.214.174.155,2003-05-20 18:08:23 cst
cherryb4487@hotmail.com,24.196.160.212,2003-05-20 17:50:55 cst
tufbubbascuba@mainstreetcom.com,204.73.105.203,2003-05-20 17:50:47 cst
...
The format selection window will look like hereafter if you select 'Comma' as
record field separator and the carriage return (CR) + line feed (LF) characters
as record separator (default value) :
There are many possibilities. You can even choose your own
separators if you select the 'Other' option.
You can then enter a string of your choice to become a Separator or click on the
dotted buttons to get more special characters.
You also need to tell the software which column contains the email addresses. In
our example we have selected 'Column 1' in the 'The Email addresses are located
in' drop down list.
When everything is done, click on 'Select' and your email addresses will appear
in the left list.
You can repeat the exact same operations to import a 'Right List'.
Now that we have imported two Lists, let's see what kind of operations we can
perform on them.
..:: Removing Invalid email addresses from
a list
Let's start with the left list and tick off the 'Flag invalid entries' check
box. The software will immediately display the Invalid email addresses.
How ? All invalid email addresses will get an 'invalid' status displayed next to
them. It is represented by the
icon, as shown in the screenshot below.
Then if you click on the left 'Results' button, you'll get
something like :
You'll get a list of the invalid addresses along with the reason
why they are invalid.
..:: Removing Duplicate email addresses from a list
Now, let's continue with the right list and tick off the 'Flag duplicated
entries' check box. The software will immediately display the duplicate email
addresses.
How ? All duplicate email addresses will get a 'duplicate' status displayed next
to them. It is represented by the
icon.
If you click on the right 'Results' button, you'll get something like :
You'll get a list of duplicate email addresses and the number of
times they do appear in the list.
It is also possible to flag entries as 'deleted'. You do this if you want to get
rid of these entries when saving your list. The email addresses will remain
visible and will be flagged with a
icon.
..:: Comparing 2 lists (Select common or
different email addresses from both lists)
Now let's perform another interesting operation : comparing two lists. To do
this, click on the 'Compare' button after having selected the option of your
choice, either 'Select common entries' or 'Select different entries'. One being
the opposite of the other.
Let's compare the lists based on common entries. After having clicked on the
'Compare' button, the software will flag all entries of both lists with small
coloured triangles as depicted in the screenshot above. In addition, all common
email addresses (common to both Lists) will be selected in each of the Lists.
Let's explain what you see in the Left List.
In this case a green triangle,
 , means
that this email address is also present in the right list and a red triangle,
 , means
that this email address is present in the left list but is not found in the
right list.
This is clearly explained at 2 different locations : in the status bar at the
bottom of the screen and also as a message box if you hover the mouse cursor
above the coloured triangles.
The exact same logic applies if you choose the 'Select different entries'
option, the only difference being that only the different entries (the red ones)
get selected (checked).
..:: Merging the Left and right Lists
Now, let's explain a very important function, the 'Merge to file' function.
The purpose of this function is to create a new list by merging the left and
right lists.
You can decide to merge all email addresses from both lists or just the ones
that you have selected in both Lists.
Merging all email addresses means that all email addresses of both list not
marked as 'duplicate', 'invalid' or 'deleted' will end up in the 'merge' output
file, selected or not.
To do a 'full' merge, the 'Selected entries only' merge option must not be
checked, then simply click on the 'Merge to file' button.
To merge selected entries only, tick off the 'Selected entries only' check box
and click on the 'Merge to file' button. Only the selected email addresses not
marked as 'duplicate', 'invalid' or 'deleted' will be copied to the 'merge'
output file.
In both cases the following window will appear :
Select an 'Output List File' name and click on the 'Merge'
button. This will save your merged lists in the file of your choice.
Instead of clicking directly on 'Merge', you can click on the 'More Criteria'
button.
You'll get the following :
You have there more options to create your merged list. You can
pick up a different record separator than CR + LF (default value).
You can also choose to tick off the 'Output full input record' check box or not.
What's the role of this option ?
This option is only relevant if you have to merge lists with records containing
more than just an email address. Like in the previous example, you could have
decided to merge lists having records like <email address><comma><IP address><comma><date
and time><CRLF>.
If you decide to output the full input record, the merged list will have the
same format as the input lists.
If you decide NOT to output the full input record, the merged list will only
contain the email addresses. You will lose all other information, i.e. <IP
address> and <date and time> in our example (one record = one email address).
Note that you can merge lists that do not have the same format. It is possible
but not be very nice if you decide to output the full input record.
..:: Finding a string in a list (Possibility to select the
matching email addresses)
Now, let's use the 'Find' function. If you click on any of the 'Find' buttons,
you'll get the following window :
You can then enter a string (we have used "yahoo.com" in this
example) and select where you want to perform your operations. This is done by
selecting 'User', 'Domain' or 'all columns' (i.e. both 'User' and 'Domain') from
the 'Search in' drop down list.
You can also select 'Whole word' for an exact match or 'Match Case' for a case
sensitive operation.
What is a 'Whole word' ? if the string you are looking for is found in the list
and is surrounded by non alphanumeric characters (i.e. different from [a-z] or [A-Z]
or [0-9]), then it is considered as an whole word.
Now, if you click on the 'Count All' button, you will get the number of email
addresses in your list that contain "yahoo.com" in their 'Domain' field. In
other words the software will also count strings like "yahoo.com.au" or "anything.yahoo.com".
If you only need email addresses with "yahoo.com" being their exact domain, then
you need to tick off the 'Whole word' check box.
..:: Splitting a List (part I)
The 'Select Match' button will select all the matching email addresses. This is
an easy way of extracting all your yahoo.com email addresses from your list and
making a separate list with only those.
Let's now discover other interesting functions. They are accessible if you right
click in the left or the light list as shown below.
As you can see we find there a few of the functions that were
accessible directly from the main window buttons as well as new functions.
..:: Performing statistics based on Domain Names
Selecting 'Domain Name Statistics' will give you the distribution of your list
based on domain names. This function is useful if you want to know the
percentage of entries having e.g. "yahoo.com", "aol.com", "msn.com" … as domain
name.
Here is an example of the output that you'll get :
..:: Sorting a List
Selecting 'Sort entries by …' will allow you to perform all kinds of sorting
operations on your list(s).
You can perform ascending and descending sorts on the full email addresses, on
the 'User' fields only, on the 'Domain name' fields only, and on all the
different 'flags' ('invalid', 'duplicate', 'deleted', 'comparison').
Note that it is also possible to perform some of these sort operations directly
from the main software window :
If you click on the small rectangles (dash) the left of the
'User' and 'Domain' column headers, you will respectively sort your list based
on User or Domain. A triangle will then replace the rectangle showing if it is
an ascending (up triangle) or descending (down triangle) sort. You can switch
between ascending and descending by clicking on the triangle.
Now if you click on the column headers (marked 1, 2, 3 and 4 on our screenshot),
you can sort your list based on Flags. This is
useful if you want to see immediately your flagged entries instead of having to
search for them throughout the List.
If you click on column header 1, you will perform a sort based on the 'invalid'
Flag. All entries flagged as 'invalid' will be put at the top or the bottom of the list
depending on their position at that moment, i.e. if they were at the top, they
will be at the bottom and vice versa.
The sorting direction is toggled as it is done for the 'User' and 'Domain'
columns. For full flexibility on 'flags' sorting, proceed through the mouse
right button popup menu.
You can perform the same operation with column header 2 for the 'duplicate'
Flag, column header 3 for the 'deleted' Flag and with column header 4 for the 'comparison'
Flag.
..:: Saving a List as Bcc
Selecting 'Save as Bcc List' will allow you to save your list as a comma
separated string such as <email address1>, <email address2>, <email address3>,
<email address4>, …
You can then easily copy and paste this string in the Bcc: field of your
favourite email client, such as Outlook Express, in order to send a message to
your List.
..:: Splitting (part II) and Saving a List
If you have entries selected in your list, then you can click on the 'Save'
button to save the selected email addresses to a file. The following window will
be displayed :
A default output file name will be proposed. It will be the same
as your list input file name but with an 'out' extension. If you want something
else as filename, feel free to change the filename to whatever you want. Then
click on the 'Save' button to effectively save all your selected email addresses
to a file.
Now, if you click on the 'More Criteria' button the previous
window will propose more options.
You can save your list with the full input record, as previously explained. To
do this, tick of the 'Output full input record' check box.
You can also select a 'Field separator' (only relevant with the 'Output full
input record' option) and a 'Record separator' of your choice.
Last but not least, you can also split your list while saving it.
You can split it 'by entries count', based on domain name or domain extension.
Splitting 'by entries count' means that you can split your list in several parts
containing the same number of records.
To do this, tick off the 'by entries count' check box and enter a number of
records. For example, if your list has 15632 records and if you enter 1000, you
will get 15 files with 1000 records each. The 16th file will contain the
remaining records, i.e. 632 records.
16 files will be created with filenames as follows : filename_1.out,
filename_2.out ... filename_16.out (filename being your list input file name).
You can go back on the 'Manage Lists' tab and click on the 'Results' button to
easily browse all the created files.
Splitting based on domain name is useful when you want, for
example, to make a separate list with all your "aol.com" email addresses.
To do this, tick off the 'based on domain' check box and select the 'Name'
option. Then enter "aol.com" below and click on the 'Save' button.
Two files will be created in the directory where your original list resides.
If your 'Output List File' is "mylist.out" then the two created files will be "mylist_I.out"
and "mylist_E.out".
_I means 'Include' and will be the file containing all your aol.com addresses.
_E means 'Exclude' and will be the file containing all BUT your aol.com
addresses.
Now if we select the 'Extension' option, the same logic applies.
This option is used, for example, to extract all email addresses for a
particular country. For example, if you want to extract all email addresses from
England, just enter 'uk'. Or if you want to extract all your '.net' email
addresses, then enter 'net' (without the dot).
We can also split the list 'by entries count' and 'based on domain' at the same
time.
In this case the output files will have the following format :
filename_I_1.out, filename_I_2.out, filename_I_3.out, ...
filename_E_1.out, filename_E_2.out, filename_E_3.out, ...
..:: Automatically created Files
You will notice that there are files that are automatically created while
working with the software.
These files are created in the directory where your list(s) reside.
When you flag duplicate entries, a file will be created with the same name as
your list but with the DUP extension.
When you flag invalid entries, a file will be created with the same name as your
list but with the INV extension.
Then, when you click on the 'Results' button, these files are read to produce
the results window output.
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