Removing Bad Emails from FM

[knjie]

Hi all,

I wanted to ask if someone knows how to remove bad emails from a FM8 without having to export all the records and running an email verifier? Are email verifiers safe to use on the Database?

Also any Ideas as to how i can remove duplicate records that already exist? I know its much but I will appreciated any amount of help.

[John Mark Osborne]

Removing bad email addresses from a database is going to be complex requiring some additional technology to check for the validity of an address.

However, you could import your bounced emails into another table and compare it to your list. I currently use an AppleScript to transfer the body of bounced emails into a table and then extract the email address using a combination of the Middle and Position functions. Once the email address is extracted, you can create a relationship from your correspondence table to the bounced email table based on the email address fields. Finally, a script can be written that will loop through the correspondence table that removes any record that matches a bounced email.

As for duplicate records, there are many methods for removing them automatically. Just sort them by the email address and loop through the records, comparing record 1 to record 2, record 2 to record 3, and so on. You can compare the records by placing the email address from record 1 in a global field and then comparing the global value to the email address on record 2. If they match, delete the record. You can also use a script variable in place of the global field if you don't need compatibility with FileMaker 7.

[knjie]

Thank you John! I will let you know how it turns out.