We’ve long been fans of Xobni’s Outlook-enhancing talents, but few of us in the office have felt inclined to shell out for the full Plus version. So, with version 1.9.2 we thought we’d give it another chance to prove its worth.
The main addition is Outlook 2010 support. It now works with both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours, and introduces an integrated ribbon search feature that continues to work when the Xobni sidebar is hidden.
There have been a few tweaks in Outlook 2003 and 2007 too. All users will be aware of the auto-suggested email addresses that appear as you type (teasingly greyed out in Xobni free), which are magically gathered not only from Outlook contacts, but from within any email Xobni has seen. Now, should your list be clogged with out-of-date or unwanted addresses, a simple highlight and delete allows for spring cleaning.
Xobni still trawls Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for updates and photos from contacts that you’re linked with on those sites, and it can now pull in profile images from Twitter. The main section of the sidebar remains as brilliantly time-saving as ever, collating previous conversations, exchanged files and – only in Plus – exchanged links and Calendar appointments.
All said, there isn’t a whole lot else for existing Plus owners in version 1.9.2, but for them this is a free update. Users of the free version, on the other hand, will be missing out on some powerful tools. The advanced search function is hugely versatile and works with an unlimited number of Outlook PST files, while the Xobni Analytics suite improves both your time management and your dealings with clients.
The downside to Xobni remains its system footprint. On our test PC, Outlook occupied a mere 55MB of RAM, which soared to a massive 185MB with Xobni enabled and the PST file fully indexed.
But if you have a reasonable amount of RAM, Xobni Plus offers a range of tools that can really make a difference to your daily productivity. And when a single licence costs only $30, with each further PC at a cost of $10, it’s a no-brainer for anyone who relies on Outlook on a daily basis.