How to add contacts to new profile from .mab (Thunderbird 68)
My old computer has died and I've got a new one, installed Ubuntu and Thunderbird. I need to get the contacts into the new Thunderbird profile but don't have access to an exported file, only the two .mab files. I know has been asked before, and I've tried following some of the advice but It's not working for me:
- I tried pasting in the history.mab and abook.mab and restarting Thunderbird but none of the contacts appeared.
- Advice to use MoreFunctionsForAddressBook add-on appears to be outdated.
Is there a way to configure multiple addressbook files and thus add (say) history-1.mab and abook1.mab (the files from my backup) to the new default ones?
All Replies (3)
dorothy.pipet said
- I tried pasting in the history.mab and abook.mab and restarting Thunderbird but none of the contacts appeared.
Did you mean you pasted in history-1.mab and abook1.mab? The only mab files that are automatically recognized are abook.mab and history.mab. To import the others, close TB and rename abook.mab to abook.bak. Copy abook1.mab into the profile folder and rename it to abook.mab. Start TB and see that Personal Address Book now contains the abook1 contacts. Create a new address book, name it abook1, close it, then select all the contacts in Personal Address Book (Ctrl+A) and drop them onto the abook1 icon. Close TB and delete abook.mab, then rename abook.bak to abook.mab. Restart TB and you will see the original Personal Address Book as well as abook1. A similar method works to import history-1.mab.
Modified by sfhowes
Thank-you for the quick response.
I did do as you said, renaming the files and re-starting TB. That much I'd picked up from searching the web. Personal Address Book does not contain any addresses, so I am stuck with what to try next.
I don't need to have multiple address books, just wondered if that was a different way of retrieving the info I've lost.
Modified by dorothy.pipet
The multiple address books are just a way to temporarily store the imported contacts during the renaming process. 'Personal Address Book' is empty - is that the original one when you set up the new computer? You can move contacts from the 'imported' address book, abook1, to PAB by drag and drop, then delete abook1 if it's no longer needed.