When selecting "Use Mac OS Address Book" where does Thunderbird get that data from, because it doesn't match. (BTW the Apple App is called "Contacts")
Using MacBook Pro running OS 10.12.6. Using Thunderbird v 52.4.0.
First noticed problem when addressing an email to a friend and the proper address didn't come up. Wasn't there. Weird.
Opened up Thunderbird's "Address Book" and noticed the email address I was looking for wasn't included in that person's contact info. Then saw that Thunderbird's Address Book looked completely different from my Mac OS Contacts.
Checked Thunderbird settings and made sure "Use Mac OS Address Book" was checked. It was.
Tried removing and re-installing everything. First just the email account. Then the whole application. Neither solution worked.
In fact, right now, before I have even added back my email account to Thunderbird (I have zero accounts; just a freshly installed version of Thunderbird), if I hit "Address Book' under the tab, "Local Folders", the address book that Thunderbird opened up is the bad one.
How do I fix this issue? How do I get rid of this bad address book?
Which file does Thunderbird use for its Address Book? How can I force it to use the correct one?
Many thanks, Dann
All Replies (5)
I don't understand this:
if I hit "Address Book' under the tab, "Local Folders",Thunderbird's Address Book and its member address books (Personal Address Book, Collected Addresses. etc) are not bound to or associated with particular email accounts. I don't understand what you mean by mentioning Local Folders. Or maybe it's all totally different on a Mac. :-(
Screenshot please?
It probably is different on a Mac. Attached is a screen shot of the pull down menu. The problem is that when I select "Use Mac OS X Address Book" (which I want to utilize), Thunderbird pulls up a list of contacts that is wrong/old/unpurged of bad addresses/and not updated with new addresses.
I want to figure out where it is retrieving this bad database; delete it if necessary, and then ensure it uses the correct, most current one.
That's the problem.
Thanks.
Sorry to bother. Figured it out. Thanks for your time.
Dear Question Owner, "Figured it out." How about sharing, so we can all benefit?
Mozilla support: what is the link between the Address book and OS X Address Book. Can data be copied from one to the other?
Here's the deal: turns out I had a couple issues, the most important of which was that I was mistaken. Thunderbird WAS indeed using my Mac OS address book; however, I didn't recognize that fact because Thunderbird uses a different sorting protocol, so when I compared the two contact databases, they did not look the same. In particular, I had many contacts with "?" as first name. All these appeared at the top of the Thunderbird sort instead of being sorted by last name. By removing the ? from the cards, things lined up better.
The other issue came from the fact that some contacts that were duplicated on my MacBook Pro but weren't identical. One set of contacts was "On My Mac" the other was "On iCloud".
Using the "Link Selected Cards" function, I was able to combine the two contacts into one, merging their info.
That problem is a whole separate issue I have with the Contacts app on my MacBookPro and its interfacing with the Contacts on the iCloud. All my contacts show up as duplicates when I select "All Contacts".
The ONLY remedy is to MANUALLY go through ALL my contacts (no limiting using any "find" contact), in alphabetical order and highlighting the two duplicate contacts (one "All on My Mac" and one "All iCloud)" then hitting "Link Selected Card" under the "Card" menu.
Huge pain, but only way to clean things up. Apple Engineers would provide no help.
I try to do a little each day. I'm on the letter "M" now.
Thanks, Apple.