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)

I often receive questions about quickly transferring contacts / calendar items from one Windows Mobile device to another. Because of the frequency of these questions, I deemed it necessary to devote a quick tutorial to the question, temporarily stopping my Next Big Thing: at last, a full review and roundup of ALL Windows Mobile-based database programs.

With devices running operating systems prior to WM5 this (at least as far as transferring contacts is concerned) was pretty easy: you just brought up the built-in keyboard SIP and tapped Ctl, and, then, A, to select all contacts. After this, you could mass-transfer all this via both infrared and Bluetooth to any other device. Alternatively, if you needed to transfer other (for example, Calendar) databases, you just fired up Pocket dbExplorer (my old, often-discussed favorite), backed up the database and just did the opposite (restored) it on the target machine.

Not so with WM5. Here, unless you use a (commercial) PIM extender like Pocket Informant, you can’t mass-select any kind of PIM data for transfer (yes, not even Contacts – Ctl-A doesn’t work any more) and Pocket dbExplorer no longer works either.

If you don’t have a desktop Outlook for quick synchronization of these types (the easiest way to do this is, again, Outlook on the desktop) and you don’t have access to any Exchange server either, you’re shot.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299705

July 21, 2006 – VITO Technology announces update for its popular contact manager – VITO QuickContact WM 5.0. Designed specially for Windows Mobile 5.0 powered Pocket PC VITO QuickContact WM 5.0 makes contacts searching really quick and easy even in huge contact lists.

VITO QuickContact is all about searching contacts. If you have a long list of contacts – this program is exactly what you need. With VITO QuickContact on your Pocket PC (Phone Edition) you can find a contact with a few button presses. There is no need to pull out a stylus to make a phone call!