How to keep addressbook updated?
Good morning!
I manage the membership register in an association, with lots of changes made every month. New members coming in, members changing their contact info etc.
I use a spreadsheet for the register, where I quickly make the updates. Now, how do I get all these updates into Thunderbird? There's no time to make changes manually in Thunderbird, so I need an import process to do it in one batch, using the spreadsheet as the source.
I created a tab spaced TXT-file, and imported it. Worked fine the first time.
Second time around, I got to folders/address books.
How do I get the import process to add new members, update existing members, and delete people no longer a member?
Seems unclever that I have to delete the whole address book, before I perform every update? Personal contacts get deleted too.
Any help much appreciated!
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Chosen solution
really, I think you will be better served using the mail merge add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/mail-merge/?src=ss
The mail merge add-on will use your CSV file to mass mailing to the group. No using The Thunderbird address book at all. It sends an individual email to each member, so there is no issues with BCC mail being SPAM or including everyone's email in the To field. All around a better result really. You can also personalize it with information from your csv file.
The main caveat about the add-on is it is very picky about leading and trailing spaces in the CSV headings line.
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Why don't you skip the spreadsheet business and manage everything in Thunderbird? If needed you can then export the address book as .csv and open it in a spreadsheet for backup purposes. Make sure to always have a recent backup of your Thunderbird profile though.
Thanks for a speedy reply!
The register contains other necessary info besides name, address, and e-mail address. Bith dates, phone numbers, and other classified information.
So I can't escape the spredasheet business, even though I'd like to!
When I create the TXT-file, I first select only name and e-mails, then create it.
I just tried something: in address book I erased the folder with members info, and my personal folder was left untouched.
Have I found half an option?
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Thunderbird doesn't merge address books. Maintaining it externally and overwriting the version within Thunderbird would be my approach. Delete the existing address book in Thunderbird, re-import it from the csv file.
If you're doing a lot of ad-hoc posting to club members then yes, you do need the addresses inside Thunderbird. If it were for just a monthly newsletter then I'd look at doing a mail merge directly from the CSV file without involving Thunderbird's address book (or Thunderbird, for that matter!)
So there´s no way to update Thunderbird directly based on the spreadsheet?
I worked with SQL some years back, and there were always scripts so perform the updates: delete posts taken out, updating existing posts, or adding new posts. It would be impossible to maintain a product register and a customer register without this active apdating, usually in real-time.
Funnily enough, I was thinking that from your description of your task, it was really better suited to a database than a spreadsheet.
So how would a proper script look like, to update an address book in Thunderbird?
Where are the address books stored? I'm all new to Thunderbird, therefore all my somewhat silly questions.
Chosen Solution
really, I think you will be better served using the mail merge add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/mail-merge/?src=ss
The mail merge add-on will use your CSV file to mass mailing to the group. No using The Thunderbird address book at all. It sends an individual email to each member, so there is no issues with BCC mail being SPAM or including everyone's email in the To field. All around a better result really. You can also personalize it with information from your csv file.
The main caveat about the add-on is it is very picky about leading and trailing spaces in the CSV headings line.