Am I looking in the wrong place?

You do. Open an address book tab. Right-click the address book to be exported in the left pane - Export. Choose .ldif as file format.

Thanks. We had a partial success.

By the way, Thunder bird can export to vCard and CSV as well as ldif. Gmail's contacts can only import vCard and CSV formats. (Apple imports contacts using all of them but we didn't test it.)

We tried importing to Gmail 's contacts using using vCard. No reported errors on import. Then, some people's emails are found when composing an email but others aren't. The problem might be related to addresses later in the alphabet.

So, do you still have a problem? It seems you were able to export the addresses from Thunderbird successfully.

Yes, we still have a problem. Not all the addresses got imported to Gmail's contacts. I was hoping that the vCard format would be more robust than CSV which is why I picked it.

Since my original question has been answered (where to find exporting the address book), I am going to say this problem is solved.

For now I can not effectively hunt down the problem with Thunderbird's cVard export file when I try importing it to Gmail. I am helping my mom via Zoom, so you know how constraining that is.

Thanks to Christ1 and david for their help.

Not all the addresses got imported to Gmail's contacts.

It would have helped if you had stated what you're trying to achieve right from the start. There is no need for this entire export/import thing, you could simply set up your Google Contacts as a new Thunderbird CardDAV Address Book.

christ1,

We want to option not to use Thunderbird as my mom's email reader. So it would be nice to have most/all her contacts in all of the Thunderbird, sonic.net and Gmail address books. It is safer. Which is why we've been exporting and importing address books.

Background: My mom updated her Mac to Ventura OS in the beginning of June. Apple refused to allow Thunderbird v102 to run. (Or user error.) I read that v102 was not updated for Ventura because Thunderbird v115 would do so. But we had no idea about when v115 would be released. She no longer had access to her contact list while using a regular browser to access her sonic.net email in June and early July. She was really put out. Anyway, most of that trauma is over now that v115 is out. I'm sorry if my explanation is wrong; I am not a Thunderbird user.