Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from Dec 2–8 to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 134 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Move addresses between two address books ....

more options

I have in my TB three address books:

a) Personal address book, b) Address Book with imported addresses (named wml-csv) and c) Collected Addresses. a) is empty, b) contains from Windows Live Mail imported addresses , and c) is empty. Which of them is TB:s default address book? If it is a) how do I get the addresses from b) to a)? And what relation is then  between c) and a)?

/hans peter

I have in my TB three address books: a) Personal address book, b) Address Book with imported addresses (named wml-csv) and c) Collected Addresses. a) is empty, b) contains from Windows Live Mail imported addresses , and c) is empty. Which of them is TB:s default address book? If it is a) how do I get the addresses from b) to a)? And what relation is then between c) and a)? /hans peter

Modified by Hans Peter

Chosen solution

Thunderbird has 2 default address books. The Personal and the Collected. Some of the latest versions of Thunderbird have All Address Book listed. This is not a real book but a virtual listing of all your books.

Most use the Personal as their main address book to keep their most used contacts in. The Collected book by default collects all outgoing addresses that you use. You can change that in Options.

An easy way to determine if an address for a message that you receive is in one of you books is to look at the star following the address in an email header. If the star is filled with color the address is already in one of your books. Clicking an unfilled star adds it to the Personal Book. Clicking a color filled star opens the edit dialog for that contact to make changes, additions or move it to another book.

This is NOT the same star that is to the left of the message header in the main window. That star is used to mark messages for reference.

Read this answer in context 👍 7

All Replies (5)

more options

Open the Address book you want to move the Contact FROM. Select the contact or contacts and drag them to the folder for the NEW Address Book and drop them there.

more options

Thank you, Airmail. It solves a part of my headaches, but two issues remain. What is TB's default address book and what do you use "Collected addresses" for? / hans peter

more options

Chosen Solution

Thunderbird has 2 default address books. The Personal and the Collected. Some of the latest versions of Thunderbird have All Address Book listed. This is not a real book but a virtual listing of all your books.

Most use the Personal as their main address book to keep their most used contacts in. The Collected book by default collects all outgoing addresses that you use. You can change that in Options.

An easy way to determine if an address for a message that you receive is in one of you books is to look at the star following the address in an email header. If the star is filled with color the address is already in one of your books. Clicking an unfilled star adds it to the Personal Book. Clicking a color filled star opens the edit dialog for that contact to make changes, additions or move it to another book.

This is NOT the same star that is to the left of the message header in the main window. That star is used to mark messages for reference.

more options

Thank you, Airmail, for the kindness. Information of this kind I really appreciate. Thanks again. /hans peter

more options

Airmail said

Open the Address book you want to move the Contact FROM. Select the contact or contacts and drag them to the folder for the NEW Address Book and drop them there.

This does not work for me. I logically thought you could just left click and hold the contact and drag it to the new address book on the left pane. You can see the folder icon as you hover over the new address book and some very very small print looks like Ctrl something but when I let go of the contact it stays where it was and searching the new address book the contact is not there. I even tried holding control while dragging/dropping, but nothing happened. Any help would be appreciated.