There is an addon which can help. MoreFunctionsForAddressBook.

• https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html

Download file to desktop or downloads file.

In Thunderbird Tools > Addons or Menu icon > addons

click on gear wheel icon and select 'Install addon from file' locate the file you downloaded and click on Open You will need to restart Thunderbird at prompt.

In 'Address Book' right click on contact in list and select 'Send as vcard'. If you want to add more than one vcard: Press Ctrl key and select contacts to highlight, then right click on highlighted contacts and select Send as vcard'. This opens a new Write message with that contact(s) added as vcard attachment(s).

There is also the option from the 'Contacts Sidebar' in a new Write window, but I'm not having any success from this method at this moment...maybe it will work for others...perhaps due to a bug, but I've reported it the author. At least it still works via Address Book.

Thanks Toad-Hall. How do you find these guys?? I can't get "attach vcard" to work with contact side bar either, which would be much better. Otherwise this attaches vcard from address book as you indicated. Really would like the way Outlook (I know, TB is not Outlook clone) would also place the vcard data directly in the email body thereby eliminating need for recipient to open or import the vcf. Side note, my default vcf reader is Outlook which opened the vcf just fine (used text format from the MoreFunctionsForAddressBook options). When i opened with Thunderbird, a blank address book contact form came up with no data. Going to leave this issue "open" for few more days in case anyone else has alternatives.

Well, if you want to embed your details into every message, a signature might be more appropriate. Type Signature into the search box on this forum.

Your signature needs to be consistent with your message format. An HTML formatted signature won't behave well in a plain text message, and vice versa. IIRC, the Signature Switch add-on supports both plain text and HTML formats in the same file, and it selects whatever version is appropriate.

Zenos, dont want to add my signature or vcard. i want to select one of the contacts in my address book and attach/imbed thier contact info in an outgoing email. (I already imbed my own contact info in the body of my outgoing emails).Toad-Hall response above provided a useful add on which almost works as i want. thanks

ajb328 said

Outlook had this nice feature allowing v card attachment for any contact in the address book to be attached to outgoing email. Will Thunderbird ever have something equivalent? Currently using Select Address book Text add on but still not V Card attach simplicity.

The various responses have not fully answered this and similar questions - the original one was pretty close but the install method has changed. Ideally the Thunderbird article (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-use-virtual-card-vcard) should be updated.

In Thunderbird itself the address books cannot be exported as vCards. The only way that appears to work at present (Thunderbird 38) is via the MoreFunctionsForAddressBook (MFFAB) add-on utility. This can be downloaded from https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html specifically https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html. Version 0.7.2.1 of MFFAB functions correctly with Thunderbird 38. However the download instructions for MFFAB are not consistent with Thunderbird 38. Instead download the xpi file for MFFAB to a convenient place (such as your desktop) then open Thunderbird Add-ons manager to Extensions page. Then drag and drop the xpi file for MFFAB onto the Extensions page. Then restart Thunderbird.

To use it to export a vCard, or the entire address book as vCards, open Thunderbird. Then open Address Book / Tools / MoreFunctionsForAddressBooks / Actions ... / Export ... and this gives the relevant functionality.

Many thanks to Birdy at BirdieSync (http://www.birdiesync.com/) for helping me with this. That's a very useful tool for synchronising Thunderbird contacts with iPhone / Android / etc.

re ;the original one was pretty close but the install method has changed.,,,, the download instructions for MFFAB are not consistent with Thunderbird 38. I

Just for the record and so that the previous comment on installation does not confuse other readers....No it hasn't changed. You can do it both ways and both options have been around for years. So both explanations are valid.

Either select the xpi file for MFFAB file you downloaded to desktop and click on Open or drag and drop the xpi file for MFFAB onto the Extensions page.

I do have MFFAB installed and it functions. However, the issue i want "solved" remains. If I am in "write" function, either as a new message or as a "reply" there is no way i can attach or insert another contact's vcard to the message. If you select the "attach" function while in "write" the drop down menu does show attach "personal vcard". I dont want that! I want to select a contact from my address book and attach their vcard to the message. This is a standard function in outlook and perhaps others (i dont recall if postbox had this functionality).

I agree with the OP. "Attach as vCard" from the Contacts Sidebar doesn't work for me either.

Last time i needed to do this, my kludge workaround was to create new messages from the Address Book, using right-click and "Send as vCard", then drag-and-drop the vCards from those messages to my new message, which as it happened was a reply.

Another vCard issue is that the vCard format that MFFAB uses is not recognised as a valid import format for vCards by iCloud. To get around this it is necessary to use MFFAB to export a vCard file from Thunderbird. Then use Gmail to import the vCard file generated by MFFAB. Then use Gmail to export a vCard file. Then iCloud will recognise the vCard file that Gmail generated. I tested this today with about 1500 addresses.

Clearly it would be better if Thunderbird did all this natively. I was especially trying not to go via Gmail but in the end had to accept defeat on that score.

The outcome for me is that I now have synced my Tbird address book with my iPhone address book, using BirdieSync. I am simultaneously synced between iCloud and the iPhone. So fully synced nirvana is Thunderbird-iPhone-iCloud for me.

(The reason to do the vCard exports was because of some legacy Exchange accounts that needed deleting, without deleting the addresses associated with them.)

(The other MFFAB address book functionality is also worthwhile, especially the ability to have 3 or more email addresses as Tbird is limited to 2).

I agree that the attach vCard issue the OP raises remains unsolved, except by awkward workarounds.

Whilst on the subject of address book functionality in Tbird it would be good if a decent in-pane viewer of an address were possible, in the main tab. There was once an add-on that did this but it has not been supported for a few years.