Can Thunderbird & Postbox share address books? ( and related questions)
I’m using Postbox after reluctantly abandoning Eudora, but I’m hedging my bets by also letting Thunderbird access the same mail files, as follows. I set up my mail files in Postbox, including local mail files, so they’re in Postbox’s folder in ~/Library Then in Tbird I went to Account Settings-Server Settings-Message Storage-Local Directory and entered
“/Users/<my name>/Library/Application Support/Postbox/Profiles/2ey65aik.default/Mail/pop.verizon.net”
I made the corresponding change for each POP and IMAP mail account and for Local Folders. Now I can launch either Postbox or Tbird (not at the same time!) and operate all the mail accounts and local folders from either mail client. So far, no glitches.
Question #1: how can I do the same thing with all my address books? I converted all my Eudora nicknames folders to Tbird format, put them in Postbox’s Library folder, and edited prefs.js to reference them. That works OK (except for lists, see below). It also works in Tbird if I put copies of the files in its Library folder.
Then I tried to make Tbird access the Postbox address books by changing Thunderbird’s prefs.js: First I replaced the file name with a full path “~Library/…/EMC-Import-1.mab"
— Tbird showed that book in the list but no addresses were in it
Then I tried putting an alias of Postbox’s address book file in Tbird’s folder
— that gave an error message as it couldn't open the file.
Does anyone know how to make this work?
Question #2: my nicknames folders had many mailing lists, which also converted and show up in Postbox. However, dragging an address from the primary “Personal Address Book” to a mailing list in address book B creates a COPY of the address (without the nickname, first & last names, etc.) in address book B. If I change the address in the primary, the copy does not change. Is there any way to make this work?
Question #3: Postbox has some very useful features but its documentation is incomplete and sometimes outdated. There are of course plenty of bugs and annoyances, but the company won’t answer email or phone questions and there’s no user forum. Is there somewhere that Postbox users congregate and swap information?
All Replies (3)
As you may or may not know, Postbox was founded by the original Thunderbird team close to five years ago.
As such, the codebase is probably not that close anymore and if you share the same information with read/write access, be advised the risk of data corruption / loss is high.
This being said...
- I'd open both addressbook files (.mab) created by PostBox and by Thunderbird to check their structure/differences, that may provide hints at what's preventing using PB's format in TB directly. I couldn't find any online information about their format, however you can look at some of their source code.
- This is how the mailing list feature in TB was designed, they are not built to keep a full copy of each contact. You may accomplish the same by assigning multiple tags/categories to contacts and using that to email contacts.
- Strange indeed that there's no indication of community support at least from their site. I found a Facebook group, perhaps ask them directly?
1. Pbox & Tbird both open the .mab files with no problem, but I’m trying to get them to open the SAME .mab files by pointing Tbird to the Pbox files, just as I have them opening the same mailbox files. I tried using the full path name in the prefs file and then I tried putting an alias in the ~/Library folder, but neither works.
2. Where do I assign tags/categories? I right-clicked Properties on a Pbox address book entry and didn’t notice anything. I have about 50 sub-address books (imported from Eudora) and lots of mailing lists that include names from multiple books, so for the moment it’s a shambles.
3. Thank you — I didn’t think of Facebook. It appears to be essentially an announcements blog. I didn’t find a way to post questions, other than to comment on an existing entry. Facebook required me to “Like” it in order to Follow it — very annoying. It shows 9,170 likes, which is probably a lower bound on the number of users.
The total absence of support (not even a user forum!) probably puts off many potential customers. My email client is my most critical application and I would gladly pay a substantial premium for phone and email support. Without support, I’m on thin ice (hence my attempt to hedge and run both Pbox and Tbird on the same mail and address files). But Tbird seems to be on maintenance only, which is also worrisome.
I was recently forced (by the death of Rosetta) to abandon my beloved Eudora, and Pbox/Tbird seems to come closer than anything else. But it’s still very painful and I’m running at about 60% efficiency compared to Eudora. I have already collected a huge file of notes on Pbox bugs, anomalies, mysteries, documentation gaps, and questions but there’s no place to send it. :o(
- Sorry I wasn't more specific, I meant opening them for examination with a text / hex editor.
- The MoreFunctionsForAddressBook extension provides support for categories which can be sync'ed to CardDav servers (such as OwnCloud). I'd suggest experimenting with a small subset / backup of your addressbook, on a different profile first. As usual, backup. Did I mention backup first? Oh, and make backups. Yes, backup.
- Well, here we are discussing Thunderbird support on a (quite active) support forum, nevermind the ton of resources about Thunderbird online. :) I do provide commercial support too, as other consultants do. If by support you mean development support, I encourage you to see the version 31 release notes, it's far from a dead project. Regarding PostBox specifically, I'd suggest letting them know what your budget is, they most certainly would be open to address your specific issues, and of course letting them know about opening a community support forum. Perhaps even offer to help with that? I'll probably be dropping them a note about it.