Gwabbit. Seriously. What?
Gwabbit for BlackBerry is a handy tool for those who get loads of emails and want to convert the information contained in the emails to address book entries.
Using the signature contained in emails sent to your BlackBerry, gwabbit scans through your and adds new contacts or edits existing contacts in your address book.
Okay, I want it now.
Gwabbit comes in two versions; either free or premium. I downloaded the free version, which has only one difference to the premium version. The free version has an alert "function" which emails an alert to the contacts that were added by Gwabbit.
The download and installation is easy. It is available within BlackBerry App World, and once the app is downloaded and installed, the app runs on its own, no special configurations or intervention by you is required.
But how does it work?
As an email is received, Gwabbit scans through the message and checks for a signature containing contact details. Once gwabbit has found contact details, a message is displayed with the contact information that has been found. You get to decide whether you wish to save the contact details shown or not.
Once you've decided to create the contact, the add contact screen is opened and the contact information is added to the address book. Company Name, Telephone Number, Email Address, and even physical address information is captured and added to the relating field in the address book.
In addition to the information being added automatically, you can also manually "gwab" contact details, by using the Gwabbit option on the options menu (when an email is open).
Gwabbit checks the address book and checks for whether a contact already exists. If the contact exists, a message will be displayed. If the contact exists, but some details are different, Gwabbit should update the contact information.
At the end of the day...
In my opinion, Gwabbit is very useful in turning the mundane job of capturing your contacts into a quick and effective task, and you barely have to do any work.
Below is what I love and hate about Gwabbit:
Turn ons:
- User-friendly, once installed, you just need to decide whether you wish to save the contact or not.
- You can switch to manual mode. If you would prefer to select which contacts to "gwab", you can switch to manual mode and use the gwabbit menu option.
- It is helpful to see what type of information is being added to your address book, before you decide to save the contact information, and you can edit or remove information before saving the contact details – which still keeps you in control.
- Changes to contacts are updated. Contacts where information is changed are updated by Gwabbit.
Turn offs:
- I don't like having a cluttered inbox and each time Gwabbit runs, it adds a message to my message list, stating whether or not the contact was saved. So even if I have not saved the contact, the entry is made to my message list.
- Gwabbit looks for specific information in a signature. Most companies prescribe guidelines as to how a signature needs to be formatted by employees. My corporate signature as an example, is not picked up at all by Gwabbit, the only information that Gwabbit picks up is my email address.
- The alert "function" on the free version. According to the Gwabbit website, if you install the free version, you alert each person that you add to your address book that you are adding them. Although Gwabbit guarantees privacy, I am not a fan of applications that will send emails on my behalf – smells like spam to me.
This app is a worthwhile tool to have as it is quick and effective, particularly for those who get emails constantly from new and old contacts. And it may also be worth-while checking out the Microsoft Outlook Add-in, which does the same thing with Outlook Emails too.
An alternative to Gwabbit is Copy2Contact. It is pricey, but offers a few features that are not available in Gwabbit.
