4 Best Ways to Combine & Merge Thunderbird Address Books
An Apt Way to Merge Thunderbird Address Books of Multiple Profiles
Mozilla Thunderbird facilitates users to generate Multiple profiles in an email client. Within every profile, users have vast amount of emails, contacts & other information stored in them. But such situations arise where people are in need to combine & merge Thunderbird Address Books Contact which have been created in multiple profiles or in other systems to merge address book in Thunderbird. Mozilla Thunderbird suite generates contact file for each profile of a user. The two default address books formats majorly used in Thunderbird are:
- Personal Address Book (abook.mab) – Within Thunderbird mail client, when a user stores the contacts in Personal Address Book it gets stored in to abook.mab file.
- Collected Addresses (history.mab) – All the Addresses get automatically saved into Thunderbird automatically for easier accessibility. This collected set of addresses can be found in history.mab file
All the other user defined or user created address Book will create another mab file with extensions abook1.mab or abook2.mab & so on.
How to Merge 2 Thunderbird Address Book Profile ?
Method 1: Combine Address Book in Thunderbird With Directory Pane
If a user needs to merge Thunderbird Address Books within a single Thunderbird profile, then you may follow the steps below:
1. Explore Address Book Window.
2. Go to View & Select Layout > Choose to turn on Directory Pane
3. Select the Address Book from which you require to merge .mab files.
4. Either Select all by selecting CTRL +A command or Choose the selected contacts to combine mab file
5. To merge Address Book in Thunderbird you must Drag & Drop the contacts from one Address Book to another.
Method 2 : Updating Prefs.js (User Preference Javascript File)
If you need to transfer address book from one profile to another or merge mab files you can simply copy address books such as Personal Address Book (abook.mab) & Collected Addresses (history.mab) from one profile to another which will automatically replace the file. Thunderbird has the capability to automatically recognize & replace the address books.
You can easily copy Personal Address Book (abook.mab) & Collected Addresses (history.mab) from one profile to another. The reason behind is both these .mab files are the default Address Book Files provided by Mozilla Thunderbird to merge Thunderbird Address Books to another profile. But, user defined .mab files (abook1.mab, abook2.mab,etc.) cannot be directly copied while you try to merge Address Book in Thunderbird.
In order to combine Thunderbird Address Books defined by the users firstly you must copy the file and then update the prefs.js file by defining the mab file to be combined. This file will enable Thunderbird to know about the new Address Book through which you may need to merge mab files. They are two ways you could do this for each address book.
Location of pref.js : Documents&Settings/Windows user name/Application Data/ThunderbirdProfiles/YourProfilename/pref.js
Method 3 : Merge Address Book in Thunderbird using Import/Export Feature
1. Open the profile from which you may need to combine Address Book in Thunderbird
2. Open the Address Book you need to Combine.
3. Move to Tools Option on the Menu bar & Choose Export
4. Select the Save as File Type as LDIF or CSV & Choose the Name of the file via medium you need to merge mab files.
5. Select the Destination Location of the file where you need to save the file to begin Thunderbird merge address book.
6. Open Other Thunderbird Account you need to merge Thunderbird Address Books.
7. Go to the Menu Bar & Choose Tools > Select Import File.
8. Mark Type of material to import as Address Books option within the Import Window.
9. From the given option as LDIF or CSV that you have chosen prior to the Import in Step 4.
10. Choose the location of the file where you have saved the file earlier.
After the Import/Export process is finished, the window may display a successfully completed the process to merge Thunderbird Address Books. You can read .mab files & access these combined Thunderbird Address Book within the email client.
Method 4 : Alter Default Addressing Location
As mentioned above that Personal Address Book(abook.mab) & Collected Address book (history.mab) are the default Thunderbird Address book contact location. Hence if you attempt to add any contact, it gets saved in abook.mab and Outgoing contact addresses are saved in history.mab.
Thus, firstly we need to change the default Addressing settings of Collected Address Book to abook.mab or Personal Address Books such that default addresses are directed to Personal Address Book.
To merge Thunderbird Address Books by altering the Default addressing Location you need to follow the steps mentioned below:
1. Open Thunderbird Account
2. Got to Tools > Select Options
3. Select the Composition Tab > Choose Addressing Tab as shown below:
This will help to save & merge Thunderbird Address books from history.mab to abook.mab
Verdict:
Though a user can create multiple profiles within the Thunderbird Email client, it does not provide a facility to merge Thunderbird Address Books defined by the users. Users might face difficulty while attempting to merge .mab file address book used by the Thunderbird. Under such circumstances, this article can be a useful resource for the users who are facing hardships to combine two Address Books in Thunderbird & access them easily as per the requirement