re :when I go to ADDRESS BOOK, contacts are listed multiple times. I think that's because the same contacts exist in my personal address book and in the other address books..

yes you are correct. the 'All address books' is not a real address book, it is type of search enabling people to search all of their address in one search.

re :Anyway, I don't see anything anywhere that enables me to CHOOSE which address book I am seeing.

In 'Address Book' you should see 'All Address Books' at the top. Below you should see all your other address books.

If you cannot see them, to the left of 'All Address Books' there should be a pale coloured right pointing sort of arrow, click on that arrow to reveal all other address books. the 'arrow' then turns to a dark colour. then you can select the address book you require.

At the moment, you cannot select a 'default' address book to always display, but this has been reported as a bug and the developers are working on a solution to allow setting a default address book.

• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1177706

In 'Address Book' you should see 'All Address Books' at the top. Below you should see all your other address books. NOT THE CASE ON MY COMPUTER. I'M ATTACHING A SCREENSHOT.

thanks for providing a screen shot.

I can see that you do not have the 'Address book' Menu Bar' visible.

Right click on the 'Address book toolbar' where it says 'New list', New contacts' , 'Write' etc a small pop up appears, please select 'Menu Bar'.

the 'Menu Bar' toolbar will appear above 'New List'. 'View' > 'Layout' > select 'Directory Pane'

this should get the left Directory Pane back in view so you can select the address books.

the small pop-up saying 'Menu Bar' didn't appear when I right-clicked as you directed. This screenshot will show you what did appear.

On a PC, with Windows or Linux, you press F10 or alt to make a menu appear. Please do some research to learn how to do this on your Mac. This isn't specific to Thunderbird. It's about knowing how to work your own computer.

When you have a menu, you'll be able to activate the Folder Pane that lists your address books.

What does this do for you? Hold down Command + Spacebar.

Hold down Command + space bar and click what? I tried doing that and clicking in the bar you pointed out on the Address Book page. I tried simply pushing Command + space bar by themselves and the computer navigated itself through different emails in some random order that I couldn't understand and doing that sometimes made the Spotlight window appear in the upper right. What a puzzle!

Hold down Command + space bar and click what? I tried doing that and clicking in the bar you pointed out on the Address Book page. I tried simply pushing Command + space bar by themselves and the computer navigated itself through different emails in some random order that I couldn't understand and doing that sometimes made the Spotlight window appear in the upper right. What a puzzle!

On a PC, with Windows or Linux, you press F10 or alt to make a menu appear. '''Please do some research to learn how to do this on your Mac.''' This isn't specific to Thunderbird. It's about knowing how to work your own computer.

ASKING YOU IS DOING THE RESEARCH. WHERE ELSE CAN I GO?

When you have a menu, you'll be able to activate the Folder Pane that lists your address books.

see above

On a PC, with Windows or Linux, you press F10 or alt to make a menu appear. Please do some research to learn how to do this on your Mac. This isn't specific to Thunderbird. It's about knowing how to work your own computer.

ASKING YOU IS DOING THE RESEARCH. WHERE ELSE CAN I GO?

When you have a menu, you'll be able to activate the Folder Pane that lists your address books.

Did you try the 'Alt' key ? Open 'Address Book' Press 'Alt' key to get a temporary Menu Bar. then use 'View' > 'toolbars' select 'Menu Bar'

Pressing the ALT key did nothing. I'm thinking maybe I should take my laptop to some LAPTOP DOCTOR for a complete overhaul.

SImes63 said

ASKING YOU IS DOING THE RESEARCH. WHERE ELSE CAN I GO?

Google Is Your Friend: http://superuser.com/questions/117549/use-the-keyboard-to-activate-the-menu-bar

But I have never used a Mac; I can't tell you how to work your own computer.

Toad-Hall said

What does this do for you? Hold down Command + Spacebar.

I had the same problem on my Thunderbird 38.4.1 on Mac OS 10.8.5, and I solver it this way:

There are 2 places were "Tools" are hidden in the Thunderbird Menu Bar, so do not click on the logical place "Tools", because somebody at Mozilla decided to hide it under the Menu item "View". First of all you must click "Write" or "Forwars to" buttons, then you must click on "View" on the Menu Bar, then in the pull-down below it you will see "Toolbars" and if you now click on "Toolbars" it highlights it with a blue stripe, now carefully follow the stripe to the right until you see a black arrow, then (you must have the Thunderbird window completely open to) see the word "Mail Toolbar". Now that does not mean that the bar is open or that you can open a window when you click on that bar, but you must click it, and a check-mark will appear in front of "Mail Toolbar". if you see the check mark close the "View" Menu, and you will now see all the tools for selecting your different address books in the header at the top of the sidebar of your Address Book window. If you now click on this header it will show all your address books in a column below it where you can select the one you want to work with, by clicking on it, and it will stay open until you exit Thunderbird or choose a different address book. Soon after that you will notice that now if you select the "All Adresses" address book it may various addresses multiple times. I was tired of seeing such nonsense and started to erase all the dupicates. To my horror this erased these addresses from the various address books I had prepared for different purposes. I had them listed In individual address books, like "Persnal", "Business", "Forward to", etc. some 9 different categories and more than 60 addresses. Now some of the were 9 times listed in the All Addresses" book......, and to findan address in it I had to do a lot of scrolling !

@canuck2: you've highlighted specific difficulties in the OSX version of Thunderbird. Stuff that is perfectly straightforward in Windows and Linux appears to be fraught on your platform. But I'd like to point out that you are describing the Contacts Sidebar in the Compose Window, not the Address Book proper.

There is one persistent bit of craziness that no-one seems willing to fix. The default presentation of Thunderbird now removes the classic menu. An alternative has been provided, the so-called Application Menu, which by and large provides all you could get at in the classic menu. But the button for this new menu appears only, if at all, in the main Thunderbird window and in other windows (Compose, Address Book, Message Reading) you still need the classic menu. To make it all even worse, it also falls to show Toolbars, which would at least permit some frequently used actions to be undertaken. So it's incomplete and inconsistent, even putting aside the awkward process you've had to use to gain access to these absent features.

My own solution to this is to put the Application Menu button on the Tab Bar alongside the Calendar buttons, so it remains visible at all times. You can also put the Address Book button here.

But your issues with the new All Addresses Book were, I think, covered in the earlier discussions in this thread. And it does have search tools; try using them instead of scrolling.

A note to anyone reading who might want to export address books. You need to export each address book individually. Selecting All Addresses doesn't work, because it isn't a real address book. It is a virtual, composite address book. For the same reason, you can't add new Contacts to it; it doesn't really exist.