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After using Google products for years, I've noticed some inconsistencies within my contacts (and accumulation of large amounts of lint), and I'm looking for software (preferably open-source) that can best handle some (or all) of the issues that I encounter.

The tool or tools can run under Android, Linux/BSD, or Windows, or as a web application (in order of preference.) I'm also comfortable exporting and importing my Google contacts in CSV format and feeding it into a tool, and then using another tool to do another function.

The first example below is required. All other functions are optional.

  • Standardization of phone numbers. Several different formats exist in the contacts list. For example, the following are all the same phone number ("isoforms"), as I predominantly use North American dialing prefixes:
    • +12345678911
    • 12345678911
    • 234.567.8911
    • (234) 567-8911
  • Inconsistent handling of suffices in names. Here are some examples of isoforms of a given name and title. It appears that there are some cases where the first and last fields do not quite match the display name, and it would be nice if this was vetted.
    • John Doe, MD
    • John Doe MD
  • Accumulation of well-known single-use email addresses. It appears that Google, by default, adds all email addresses to the contacts list (but not to the "My Contacts" group). It would be nice to get rid of infrequently used addresses such as these:
  • Removal of contacts that have little or no information (other than name.) Some contacts only have a minimum of information, such as a first name only and an email address or a URL. Additionally, at some point in time, I tagged a bunch of faces in Picasa. Little did I know that it would add these "people" to the My Contacts list:
    • Bernie the Dog
    • Cricket the Cat
  • Removal of useless websites. Do I really need Google Plus profiles associated with all of my contacts? Probably not.
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I have been trying to "clean up" my contacts as well. In this Software Recommendations SE question I am requesting software recommendations to backup all contacts, preferably in an editable format (like CSV, XML, or HTML). Part of the reason for that question is to be able to tidy them up, as you are attempting as well.

So far, I have not found a reliable way to back up and restore (offline) contacts in Android, so I have been experimenting with tools to work on them within Android.

One such tool, Contacts Optimizer, meets some of your needs.

Here are details of its functions as described in the Play Store:

Contacts Optimizer's powerful features and beautifully simple interface puts you in charge of your contacts again:
• Remove all duplicates and even find similar contacts
• Every individual optimization function at your fingertips
• Edit Contacts feature with Move to account function
• Mass move of selected contacts between accounts
• Move all contacts - a powerful function for moving contacts between accounts. You can combine your contacts from Phone Memory to Google to have them all synchronized and then find and delete all duplicates.
• The ability to quickly delete individual contacts you no longer need
• Correct and nicely format phone numbers
• Locate potentially incorrect contacts which cannot be dialed
• Find all incomplete contacts that have an important contact field empty
• Clean contacts removing empty fields
• Add international prefixes and country codes where needed
• Merge contact fragments into one rich contact
• Locate contacts in your messages and calls that have not yet been saved • Digitizing of vanity numbers like 1-800-MY-GOOGLE
• Edit, Delete, Select all or unselect all contacts at any time, just tap and hold the contact
• Search and replace enables mass changes in contact names, country codes, notes, emails and all other fields
• New optimization algorithms identify and solve more problems in contacts

Here is a screenshot of the app from the Play Store showing an overview of some of the available functions:

enter image description here

I have had success using this app to fix numerous issues with Android contacts.

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    This utility was very helpful. I did find the UI a little bit confusing and also had to manually filter out some single use addresses, but it did the trick. Thank you so much!
    – baitisj
    Jun 1, 2016 at 6:09

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