You can't remove the Addresss Book, but you can select all and remove the address.

Stop adding the email address automatically to Address Book

• Go to Tools->Options->Composition & Addressing
  • Addressing tab > "Global Addressing Preferences"
  • Uncheck [ ] "Automatically add outgoing email addresses to my: Personal Address Book"

Thanks, iamjayakumars, for your reply. Unfortunately the problem is that everything that I receive and everything that I send ends up with its address in the address book in spite of nothing being ticked. I had thought that if I leave the boxes beside each option, then nothing would find its way into the address book.

Incidentally, I have not got an option called "Global Addressing Preferences" and neither have I a menu item called "Composition & Addressing" the menu item is just called "Composition" which has three tabs: "General", "Addressing" and "Spelling". The "Addressing" tab is only to do with outgoing e-mails and asks where it should find the address - "Local Address Books" or "Directory Server".

I am using version 24.3.0

I don't quite understand how all these addresses get into your Address Book.

Thunderbird can add all unknown outgoing addresses, usually to Collected Addresses. But you don't post back to spammers, do you?

It can't, by itself, add addresses from incoming messages. You have to do something to make that happen.

There are add-ons that add the ability to harvest addresses from incoming messages, but are best avoided, I think, for the very reasons that your post illustrates; doing this fills up your Address Book with spam addresses.

One slightly less than obvious route by which an address can be added into your Address Books is if you allow it to display remote content; since the Address Book is used as a whitelist, marking a message to allow remote content can have the result that an entry is created in an Address Book.

I would argue that all good addresses should be stored in a "proper" address book - Personal Address Book, or any that you've defined for yourself. Collected Addresses is a triage pound for harvested addresses awaiting your endorsement. You should review it periodically, move useful address to an address book and clear out the rest, the aim being to keep it as near empty as possible.

I show below the dialog I believe was mentioned by iamjayakumars. But I agree with you that I can't exactly match the directions he gives. I would get there via Tools|Options|Composition→Addressing

"Composition & Addressing" seems to be under Tools|Account Settings, and that's where you'll find the Global Addressing Preferences button he mentions. It ends up at the same settings window as shown below.

Hi Zenos,

I don't understand either how my address book is full of spammers' addresses. Everything that comes in and everything that goes out seems to end up with its address in the address book. I know that isn't supposed to happen but it does.

It seems to me that the more TB is "improved", the worse it becomes.