2014/01/15

Google and Barnes and Noble Nook issue with dozens (or hundreds or thousands) of empty "Starred in Android" groups

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! Backup first!

A brief history:
If you search for "starred in android" (with the quotes) currently it will lead you to posts (like this one) by dozens, maybe hundreds of people who have A LOT of "Starred in Android" folders in their Google Contacts. There is a lot of speculation that it's a Barnes and Noble Nook syncing issue as nearly everyone posting (as far as I can tell) has or had a Nook.

UPDATE:
I have gotten some feedback (see comments) that people who don't have or never have had Nooks are experiencing this issue as well.

Those who are in this situation end up with anywhere from dozens to literally (like mine) THOUSANDS of these empty folders in their contacts. It really slows things down - I've noticed quite a difference since fixing mine.

So far, the only suggested solution is backing up your contacts and running a 5 year old script that deletes all of your groups! (YUK!)

So, I started thinking about solutions and thought maybe there was a action replaying software option I could use. Sure enough, I remembered one and managed to get it working.

UPDATE:
I came across someone else's script which runs "inside" the Google system. No need to make any real changes like mine.

WHAT YOU NEED:
You will need an add-on called iMacros and I recommend doing this (at least the recording part) in Firefox. You will need to record X/Y coordinates in iMacros and I haven't figured out how to get them in Chrome.

UPDATE:
Apparently CLICK is not supported in Chrome. It's for Firefox only.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Once you have iMacros installed and opened, it should appear in a window on the side of your browser.

  1. Click on the "Edit" tab and then settings.
  2. Click on Recording Preferences and then Use X/Y position.....if you can find X/Y in the Chrome version then go for Chrome.
  3. Now, go to your Google contacts page, then on the iMacros window, click record (on the iMacros record tab).

The next few steps are pretty much what you would normally do to delete the folders.

  1. Click the first "Starred in Android" folder.
  2. Click on "More" at the top, then "Delete group" and finally OK.
  3. Click stop 


Now, along with some other code, there should be 4 sets of coordinates proceeded by "CLICK". YOUR NUMBER WILL BE DIFFERENT!

  1. CLICK X=98 Y=488
  2. CLICK X=435 Y=86
  3. CLICK X=453 Y=205
  4. CLICK X=423 Y=400

VERY IMPORTANT! MAKE SURE YOU DELETE THE FIRST SET OF COORDINATES!! This is how we make the script stop when all the groups are gone!!!

Copy the script below (starting at Version BUILD) and place YOUR coordinates in the lines indicated below IN PLACE OF MINE!
Lines beginning with ' are comment lines. These explain the next line(s) of code
'This is an example of a comment line

SCRIPT:

VERSION BUILD=8601111 RECORDER=FX
'Script by Sean A. Flesch www.sflesch.com
'2014-01-06
'Reuse and sharing allowed, please just include credits
'
'I assume this is just the first tab
TAB T=1
'Reset the URL - I'm thinking this may help to keep memory from building up
URL GOTO=https://www.google.com/contacts/
'Wait until the page loads - increase if you get an error about not finding Starred In Android
WAIT SECONDS=25
'Tag the first Starred in Android folder
'The next line is INSTEAD OF your FIRST set of coordinates!!
TAG POS=1 TYPE=A ATTR=TXT:StarredinAndroid
'Give it a second for the menu to come up for the group
WAIT SECONDS=1
'Location for the "More" button after selecting the group
'Put your second set of coordinates in place of mine in the next line
CLICK X=435 Y=86
WAIT SECONDS=1
'Location for "Delete Group" after selecting "More" in the previous step
'Put your third set of coordinates in place of mine in the next line
CLICK X=453 Y=205
WAIT SECONDS=1
'Location of "OK" button for confirmation to "Delete Group"
'Put your fourth set of coordinates in place of mine in the next line
CLICK X=423 Y=400
WAIT SECONDS=1


Copy the above script and save it in iMacros with whatever name you choose.
After you have tested it a few times, under the Play tab, increase the number under the Max box . I messed around with this for a while and probably deleted a few hundred groups (I didn't realize I had so many) thinking the script wasn't working. Once I tweaked it enough (the first wait command is the key one!), I figured out I had over 2,000 groups! I ran my last two loops 1,000 time each

Yes! 2,000 after deleting several hundred already!

SOME FINAL NOTES:

So, if your script errors out, especially with an error about finding "Starred in Android", remember two things:
1) Try not to run a lot on your computer while running the script (maybe run it overnight)
2) Increase the FIRST Wait by a few seconds. This will allow it a little more time to finish loading the page.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! Backup first!