Tutorial: Cleaning your WLM Contact List
Over the years you will find that your contact list gets cluttered. You’ve deleted people, blocked people or even both. Maybe others have deleted you, blocked you or both. For the people that have blocked or deleted you…why bother keeping them on your contact list?
Why not delete them? But then how do you tell who’s actually blocked and/or deleted you?
I present Noroom’s ListCleaner. I’ve had this app for many years now, although never bothered to share it with anybody. The original author no longer supports it, I would love to see it ported to a nice .net application or even the features incorporated into Messenger Plus! Live. Maybe I can write a script for it
Here’s the description from the readme.
“Often, when u sign in to Messenger, the server sends a list with containing users who have permission to see you online, who do not have permission, who have you on their contact list, and who you have on yours. Sometimes you delete some users, and people delete you from their list, too. Even though they don’t have you on their list anymore, their email will stay on the list of people who can see you online. Why allow them to see you online, if they don’t have you on their list anymore? It is pointless to give them persmission to see your status when they don’t have the ability to do so. Now, let’s say you block someone and then delete that user from your list. Imagine that the person you blocked also deletes you. That person’s email will stay in your block list, even though it is not likely they will talk to you, because you are not on their contact list anymore.”
All you have to do is download the app and login with your WLM account. The app will then collate all the people that you can delete. Simple!
I know this isn’t much of a tutorial but it’s something that I thought people would find useful. I bet most people would be quite surprised at the results.
Too bad it’s not opensource, I would love to take a quick look under the hood of that application.
In case you missed the download link above here it is again.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Sorry John but I make a point of never EVER giving my msn login details to anything other than Windows Live Messenger
Haha that’s a pretty strong point Cat. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything malicious with your information
wow, i was really confused there for a minute then realised u changed your blog’s theme. The other one was better!
Personally, i doubt clearing a few ppl from your list is going to speed up msn logins by any significant amount as this app claims. I will do a quick check with wireshark in a sec to have a look tho (assuming it’s plaintext).
Also no vista support it seems
(are u using it on win7?)
Rofl it doesn’t say anything about “significant” decreases in sign-in speeds, and note…this app was written back in the days of 512kbps ADSL or even dial-up, nevertheless, it should work in Vista, as it works on 7.
It’s just somewhat nicer to know that your contact list is cleaner.
Hi John!
Will this act as “Deny A Buddy” for WL Messenger? I mean, will I be able to remove my contact (email address) from other’s list?
I don’t quite understand you. This simply removes any contacts that have either deleted you or blocked you on THEIR contact list.
Hi again!
Will it some sort of spam????
What do you mean by spam? It will only delete people that will not ever talk to you.
Thanks for patiently replying, John! Even I want to get rid of ’so called friends’!